Put a salary on this job

In My Humble Opinion
81

Your ad needs to be:

Short and concise. Less is more. As others have said, this isn’t a psychiatrist’s couch. You are hiring someone to help you run a business. Or run errands. Tell the applicant what the job is about in six or eight lines. (It sounds like at least two jobs to me, too.)

Make it friendly. Not just neutral – convey a tone of someone you want to spend 8+ hours a day around with no other employees or distractions. It’s almost like being roommates. It’s a rather intimate setting, being in someone’s home all day. Make it inviting.

Be clear about the expectations. You can’t expect someone to stay late everytime you remember you need to finish something unless that’s the way the job was presented in the first place. People work so they can have a life. You don’t want to intrude on that.

When you think the ad looks perfect, put it away and read it again the next day. Make sure it reflects the mind of a business person.

Good luck!

82

I’ll back Stoid up on this one. Smokers stink. They stink up every place they are, even if they aren’t actively smoking at the moment.

83

I have to agree about the no-smokers thing. I can smell a smoker across the room and I don’t like it. I’ll never, ever hire one, because the smell bothers me that much. I know that many of them would never dream of smoking around me, but if they had a cigarette before coming in, or away while at lunch, or while taking a break, they’re going to smell and it really affects me.

84

Featherlou, I would hire you in a heartbeat for your candid assessment of the situation and your honest opinion. This person needs you in a big, bad way! :stuck_out_tongue:

85

I was snarky on my first go around, but then afterwards thought of some real advice.

Several posters, including Jodi have better expressed parts of what I was going to say. I hope that Stout pays attention.

My younger brother possibly has ADD and there are some remarkable similarities in the communication style. Since I don’t know Stout at all, other than the Pit thread, I’m not going to assume that everything my brother has problems with is going to match. However, I hope that she can get something out of this.

One problem with ADD is that people often do not pick up on the same social subtleties than most people do. I grew up in a very strange family and had to learn the social subtleties as an adult, but fortunately without the added burden of ADD.

I would have read the Pit thread differently had I realized that the author has ADD. I would really recommend finding someone to work on specific issues.

My brother is not aware of how he sounds to others. He can be very, very insistent and does not recognize when or why he has pissed of people. Again, while I’m not saying you are my brother, there seems to be confusion on why people are put off by either of the ads or by your posts. If you are already aware of this, and your tone is intentional, then I apologize for the lecture. (In that case, I’ll wait until you piss off someone enough and get pitted.)

An issue is that people with ADD are often not aware of what level of information, joking, bragging (stating one’s strengths), and complaining (stating one’s weakness) that is appropriate to be shared depending on the relationships. Both of the ads scream with information which is inappropriate for first time readers.

Likewise, with some of your comments in your posts. For example, the exchange with ** Justin_Bailey** who was not rude to you on his first comment, but your response was over the top, unless you really were angry with him. See, I don’t know if you were really angry that he questioned you about that, but your level of response comes across as condescending. I read it that way as well, because I don’t know you. See, if ** Autolycus ** says something like that, then more of us know his personality and could tell if he’s joking. You may have been a frequent poster before, but you’re just recently back and you don’t have the same mileage as you did before. After a dozen threads about your line of work, then we can expect more people to know what you do.

I don’t presume that I know you and I hope I’m not projecting my experiences with my brother on you. Again, I don’t want this to sound condescending, but it seems – to me – that there may be a gap between what you want to say and what most people perceive by reading your ads or posts.

86

Gee, I wonder if she’ll listen to your sage advice after the hi-larious way you’ve called her “Stout.” :rolleyes: Oh my sides. What are you, in seventh grade?

87

I actually thought that was an honest mistake by Tokyo Player. I really hope so.

88

Cool! :cool: Good to hear - I have to go looking for work again tomorrow.

89

:smack: Ooops. That’s embarrassing. :o

90

Sorry to continue this hijack, but Tokyo, what you describe sounds much more like aspergers than ADD. Or possibly high-functioning autism. The only characteristic of ADD that I see in your description is impulse control issues. Has your brother been diagnosed?

IANAPsychologist and all that.

91

Can’t imagine why you’d be embarassed, you intended it, unless youre’ dyslexic. No one accidentally types “ut” for “id”.

As to the rest…well, someone else pointed out that your brother sounds like he has Asberger’s, not ADD. And I’ll leave it at that.

92

Whatever. :rolleyes: As I said, it was a mistake, but obviously you are intent on taking offense.

93

Sure you did.

I say “The ad doesn’t describe the company enough, some people might not like that.”

You reply “Most folks who’ve been around here know exactly what I do” implying that I’m somehow a lesser poster because I didn’t know that.

I remark that I did not appreciate this comment.

You then tell me it’s a good thing I’m not applying for the job (which is a shame for you, because I am probably the ideal candidate for a job like this and would have jumped at it a few years ago) while then admitting you haven’t been here for three years.

Why should I know what you do if you haven’t posted a single sentence in three years? Three years is an eternity on the Internet, especially on a fast moving board like this. And double especially on a board that has several distinct forums that don’t always mix. I spend most of my time in Cafe Society. How often have you posted about your business there?

And then you feel the need to attack TokyoPlayer over a typo in your name. What could possibly make you take such offense to a typo?

94

Oh, and I just did a little cursory searching and I’m not sure how anyone around here can know what you do, let alone us “new kids on the block.”

A search of Stoid’s username and the word “erotica” produces 1 thread from 2004 where she describes herself as the SDMB expert on erotica matters. This is the closest she comes to mentioning what it is she does for a living.

The same search using the word “porn” produces 12 hits ranging from 2002-2005 and not a single one includes a mention of Stoid’s business.

So I ask again, how the fuck should I know what it is you do? Or do only the cool kids that have been here forever remember posts that you apparently never made?

Although, I’m sure you must have mentioned it in threads that aren’t archived in the search, but why those would matter in September of 2007 baffles me.

95

However you want it to be, so it is and shall be, for both of you. You can trust in me to back you up 100%.

96

Ya, whatever that means.

Enjoy your day.

97

Stout is a real word, Stoid isn’t, so it’s an understandable mistake, not so different from people calling me Marisol (Mary-Sun) when my name happens to be the much-less-comon Mariluz (Mary-Light).

Your response may not have been from a high horse, but from where I’m sitting, the quadruped under you is on, at least, a 12th floor.

98

Mary-Light is a cool name, Nava (so is Mary-Sun). What does Nava mean?

StG

99

I once called catsix “catsup”. I was respectfully disagreeing with her at the time but it actually was a mistake. FTR I’m not dyslexic.

100

I think it’s really easy to substitute a word you know for one you don’t when you are typing fast. I seriously do not think that TokyoPlayer would misspell a user name on purpose like that, either.