Roget called and he wants his thesaurus back.

I promised that my next post would be something interesting or amusing.  Today it’s definitely the latter.  Although parts of today’s post may sound like a rant, it really is not.

The subject of today’s post honestly does amuse me. Today I want to talk about job descriptions.  Yes, job descriptions amuse me, and if you stay with me here for a minute, you shall see why.

I, like many other Americans (and persons in other countries too I imagine), receive a regular update from a couple of job seeking sites.  I am not currently looking for a job, as I am gainfully employed by a company I (usually) enjoy working for.  But one email in particular that I receive suggests jobs that I might be qualified for in my local area.  I often click on the job titles that look like they might be a match to see what’s out there.  The problem is that many times I can’t tell what the job is.  Have you read any of these job descriptions lately?  They are a riot.  Here is a sample (from which I have intentionally removed any company identifying information):

• “Highly addicted to problem-solving…”

• “…passionate desire to develop and deliver…”

• “…fundamental disbelief that challenges cannot be overcome…”

Wait.  Is this a job description, or the book jacket of a pulp romance novel?  Highly addicted.  Passionate Desire.  Fundamental disbelief.  Should I be updating my resume, or dimming the lights, lighting some candles and putting on some mood music?  Seriously, I laughed out loud when I read that.

But wait, it gets better, with business buzzword-laden statements like these:

• “Our employees work as a cohesive team to define and solve problems, develop solutions and promote our collective objectives.”

• “…deliver mission-critical solutions…”

• “…facilitate success through fostering teamwork and collaboration…”

• “Manage and mitigate risks, overcome obstacles to success encountered by the team.”

Now, I’m pretty well versed in buzzword-speak, and I’m certainly guilty of using more than my share of them sometimes.  But I have re-read this job description probably 5 times and I still don’t know what one does in this job.  I’m going to try to follow up this post with my own job description that tells you nothing about what I do.  Anyone want to do the same?  Feel free to post it in the comments!