View from the North 40: When a job is more than a job

We’ve read the reports of how joblessness is down, seen all the help wanted signs and listened to the ’70s generation talk about how “jobs were so scarce back in my day, there was 80 people applying for every job listed, and if you didn’t show up in a suit, carrying a 10-page resume, for a mechanic job you were culled at the door.”

Maybe that last one is just my cross to bear, nevertheless, these days, plenty of job opportunities exist, and here are some of them:

The Scott County Rural Fire Protection District chief got so tired of his Missouri county fire district being short-handed that he resorted to humor to catch prospective employees’ attention. The Associated Press reported in April that change-board signs outside the county’s fire stations all read “Help Wanted — Hard Labor, Odd Hours, Low Pay — Cool Helmet.”

No word on whether or not it worked.

United Press International reported this week that people have until May 26 to submit their resumes for the “Natty Light Summer Intern” position. The Natural Light beer company is looking for a paid intern, 21 or older, to spend the summer partying on their beer and creating social media content. It sounds cool, but ...

The intern will act as a brand ambassador at various summer events, creating viral social media content including weekly video posts while being “outgoing, but not annoying, there is a fine line,” the job description says.

The qualification list also says that “confidence is a must” and the applicant should “just be cool,” and this must be done while conducting product research and keeping the brand manager apprised of the latest social media trends.

What? How do you maintain a “cool” status while conducting a product satisfaction survey on drunk people?

I’ve never been cool in my life, but like all the little nerds, I studied the concept and it seems to me that even the intern-vetting process is fraught with difficulties: If you apply, you are declaring yourself cool, but one of the first signs of being less than totally cool is having to explain to people that you are, in fact, cool.

Good luck with that conundrum people.

This next job sounds awesome, on first hearing, to someone hoping to go on vacation soon: Getting paid to stay in bed for two months.

National Public Radio reported in April that “NASA, the European Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center are offering $18,500 for people to lie in bed for two months.”

Seriously, it sounds so attractive that I gave it top billing as my final point in this week’s column.

But upon further investigation, is it awesome?

You’re in bed, but not your bed. You won’t have anyone to warm your feet on, no dog to greet you in the morning, no cat to purr at you during the night, nothing.

You do get breakfast in bed, but you also get all your other meals there — right there where you also have to bathe, exercise and go potty. Yeah, you read that right.

When you say, “I have to go to the bathroom,” they say “Here’s your receptacle. Don’t bother getting up because for two months you don’t GO to the bathroom, you live to the bathroom.”

That’s right, the dining room and bathroom are the bed you sleep in. In fact, everything you normally do in bed is a no, and everything you would do in another room is a yes.

This “dream job” breaks down to about $13 an hour, with no benefits and no perks — not even bathroom breaks.

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Did it seem like I was not letting go of that bathroom thing? Yeah, it’s the deal breaker at [email protected].