Is this the most ridiculous job posting ever?
If you like the internet, weekends, or holidays, this position may not be for you
The Dalkey Archive Press is a renowned independent publisher that has been heaped with praise for printing the likes of William Gaddis, John Hawkes, Flann O'Brien, and other top-notch writers who have been pushed to the side by an industry increasingly betting its entire future on Fifty Shades of Grey and teen-vampire series. That being said, Dalkey Archive also sounds like a terrible place to work. A job posting for an unpaid position has attracted attention for its hilariously cumbersome demands, which seem unlikely to be met by most humans:
On top of that, prospective employees should plan on committing a fair amount of time to work:
John O'Brien, the director of Dalkey Archive's American office, tells the Irish Times that the ad was "tongue-in-cheek," though it contains a serious message: Apply "if you're going to be serious and are ready: If not, then let's not waste each other's time. Usually this is couched in the sanitized language of 'must be deadline-oriented, well-organized, ambitious,' etc. But as I think we've known for a long time, the age of irony is dead, and I'm a fossil."
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Either way, O'Brien has probably succeeded in convincing thousands of unemployed literature grads that they should have majored in something else.
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Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.
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