Looser Job of The week award, or Another reason to Roll Your Own Startup

A disgruntled reader sent us a link to this job with the words "that's it, I'm starting my own company"!

Congratulations, Alexander, and though rolling your own is full of challenges, it can't be worse than this crap job!

In short, the cheapscates at Timbro, with the help of no-moral recruiters at Propeller, sorry, Propell, are looking for one gullible chum to fill five jobs.  Shame on you both!

Let's list the responcibilities!

Mind you, they will simply call you "Responcible for web", not "Web Director" or "It VP", as this job deserves!

-Be driven about web (or getting royally screwed, preferably  both)

-Strategic and operative analysis of web communications

-Update website and supervise new CMS migration

-Edit images and create images for announcements

-Edit video and upload to timbro.tv

-Produce podradio  podcasts

-Live web broadcasting

-Update webservers (notice the s there, suckers?) and Word-Press

-Handle consultant services in regards to programing, desing etc. in regards to website and campaign sites.

Responcible for intranet

-Quality control of IT in company

Tech Support - once you are done being the resident biatch with videos, web development, blog updates and quality control, they expect you to keep their park of 20 computers sparkling clean.

Of course, 5 years experience a degree and knowledge of software is required. The salary is naturally unlisted, as they want to follow in the best traditions of cheapskates and hire the lowest bidder. But sources within the company tells us that they are hoping for someone in the 21000 sek range, that is a little over 2000 USD a month after taxes.

There's a reason why most webmasters refuse to do tech support - your loyalty to web visitors requires a very different set of skills from beating office fry into following safety standards and not clogging the printer. There is no contract you can threaten a visitor with, and you only have 3 seconds to get someone's attention on the web in the best scenario.  Web design is fundamentally different from customer support - you have to think as an entertainer, informer, and information architect coupled to sales, rolled into one.

Tech support mostly involves contemplating suicide due to complete loss of faith in humanity, that's why the average churn for support desks is less than 2 years.

Our only question is, does the job come with a muzzle, leash and orifice plugg, or do they expect the aspirant to provide their own? Something tells us it's the latter.

Oh, and people that had the guts to start their own company? Why, some of them are being bought out for millions just for the priviledge of having them on the team. If you don't play, you can't win.

And if you don't have the guts to carry risk, then there will allways be more risk-prone looking to take advantage of you.

What are the advantages of running your own business?

You decide when enough is enough

When I was 18, me and my friend were throwing parties in New York. Once you had the music going and the guests dancing, you simply had to keep an eye that everything rolled smoothly. I would lean back, relax, and chat. Compare this to the experience of my cousin that landed his first job at McDonlads. If you were sitting down, you were failing. You were expected to be on your feet, wiping stuff down or making some other unnecessary moves, so as to keep up appearances.

The fear of success that permeates protestant culture means that most workforce denizens are very much afraid of completing their task. Doesn't that make them unnecessary? Everybody keeps making jerky movements to keep up appearances of how indispensable they are.

A corpse (that is for corporate) boss will never say "great, enough, move on". They will bring up the long list of other crap they need you to do. Uneccessary junk needed to prove how wonderfully busy everybody is.

Sure, sometimes you will have to work days without rest to make sure your startup will succeed. But as long as you kill the inner idiot, the slave that was created by our schools and conformist culture, you don't have  to just work.

You can concentrate on making a difference and getting results. I never hire people based on resume. I only need to see what you did in the past. And then do a 2 to 3 week contracting job with you. Better yet, your fame precedes you, be it a startup you did or publicly available code.

Only corspes care about CVs. Winners care about results.

Did you notice that the job description above did not list what the conditions will be for you? Try to win you over with perks, job culture description, hours or even the salary?

They want a hungry, nervous slave that needs the illusionary security of a job to justify existence. They  want someone that is so conditioned to have work and authority figure approval that a simple job is reasion enough to want it, whatever the job is.

Or how about the fact that half of those activities are unnecessary for the bottom line? So far, nothing in the job description mentions their strategic visions and goals. Who are their customers, what do they want from their customers? Do they need investors, donations, partners, readers, buyers, attendees? All different people, to be addressed differently.

A pretty picture will not sway readers. Properly executed strategy will.  It is telling that the job description lacks any mention of it.

Go out there, make your own game according to your own rules. Unless, of course, you love the feeling of that harness. Good employee!