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13 August 2009
August should be abolished. While others sun themselves in Italy, Ireland and, erm Bosnia (no, I couldn't quite work out either of the last two myself) I merely slog my way through the list of tasks left to me by Mr T as he sports elsewhere on the beach. I know I had my holiday already but it wore off weeks ago. I need another to lift my spirits and nothing is forthcoming. Here in the office, my work load has been further enhanced by the deluge of job applications for the new skivvy, I mean receptionist. We're looking for a recent graduate. If you are one of them and you have bothered to look us up and read this blog to find out what it's like to work at Pedantic before applying, then you're showing an initiative not shared by most of the unsuccessful applicants for the last two jobs here - some of whom hadn't even bothered to mug up on our list of publications. However, what really concerns me about a great many of you who have applied for this post is that, despite having 2:1s from reasonable and even, in some cases, illustrious, universities - and often a subsequent MA (in publishing) too, many of you don't seem to know how to lay out a simple letter. The spacing is gap-toothed, irregular, without return address or date, the salutation missing and the signature either absent or medically illegible. Some of you who have studied English and Creative Writing have glaring grammatical errors and then go on to tell me all about your skills in proof-reading and editing. Have you remembered that this is a job working as both a receptionist and personal assistant to two of our directors?
Children. A word of advice from someone who taught herself to type on a sheet of A4 paper laid out like a QWERTY keyboard (in the days before Mavis Beacon) and who left school at 16 :
You may indeed have a first in German, Astrophysics, Marine Biology or a distinction in your Oxbridge MA on the prevalence of mental illness amongst Victorian novelists; you are, almost certainly, massively over-qualified; have a love of literature and a degree in Feminist Comedy Scriptwriting, but here, before being an 'avid reader' or having 'an urge to work in publishing to extend your literary career' you will first need to be able to type a letter. It's as well to make sure that the one that accompanies your CV does not look like it was knocked out by a chimp.
Heed it or not, as you will. But I'm the person who is opening your application.
Posted by Writer in Residence at 11:02 PM
This should be sent out with the job description, and circulated nationally!
Excellent - agree with anonymous. Absorb the lessons of this piece dear applicants.
I only got my job as an assistant editor with (ahem) a more venerable publishing house because they didn't bother with the usual handwriting test. My handwriting is still incomprehensible even to me.
Once you get the job it helps if you get promoted before getting found out: I managed it. As someone recently noted, it's not so much what you are, it's what other people think you are that really counts.
oh goodness don't mix paracetemol with booze or caffeine or indeed anything. Give the liver a chance.
I lost hangovers 20 or so years ago after discovering that most Glasgow pubs hit you with slops and that spirits contain weird stuff apart from the 40%., and switched to wine.
Oh M, I laughed so much while reading this post that I almost cried! Luckily, I had read the blog before applying for my job at 'Pedantic'. I couldn't wait to see who this mysterious 'Writer in Residence' was!
Thanks for making my lunch time so great! (and the rest of my day too!)
The French one... who sits not too far from 'the front desk of publishing'!