'Dear Millennials' job ad sparks fury

A London cafe has been savaged on social media for an "insulting" job ad railing against "millennials" and suggesting they didn't understand the "real world".

The Tea House Theatre event venue and cafe posted the ad for an administrator to join its staff on the Arts Council England's ArtsJobs site, the BBC reports.

The ad opens with "Dear Millenials [sic]" - and if younger readers can already feel their hackles rising, their instincts are correct - what follows is no love letter to the younger generation.

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After a brief history of how the theatre has survived for 20 years by "grafting, scraping, cap in hand to angels and funding bodies and occasionally getting lucky", the posting gets down to brass tacks.

"It saddens me to be putting this advert up for the third time in as many months," it reads.

"Are you just not taught anything about existing in the real world, where every penny counts. Did no one teach you that the end of your studies is the beginning of your education?"

The writer complains that sice "one old lady used to run the whole of Mountview Academy with an IBM computer, it shouldn't be this hard".

For those masochists still keen to see if they have what it takes, the letter enumerates the skills the theatre is looking for.

"We need a grafter, who can commit. The absolute dogs in office skills, the ability to run a paper filing system as well as a computerised one, the ability to complete and keep track of a huge to-do list, to make our office work, create and develop business management systems that help the business to grow, giving space for more creative work to go ahead."

And all, as Twitter users noted, for the sum of £15,000 to £20,000 per year.

The letter closes on an ominous note: "We have not been impressed so far."

Young people were, predictably, similarly unimpressed by the tone of the ad.

Millennials aren't the only ones who apparently have a lot to learn about the "real world", says ShortList's Gary Odgen. "If you want someone to apply for your job, your best bet is to not insult them."

The Tea House Theatre has not issued a response to the furore, but Arts Council England told the BBC that the posting had been removed for breaching their guidelines about targeting age groups.