Prefatory note: The following are excerpts from a pamphlet I found in a gas station bathroom in White Pine, Tennessee titled “Get Jobbed: Buford Fink’s Guide to Gainful Employment.” A number on the back of said pamphlet offered life coaching if one called 1-900-U-JOBBER.

I present this to your without further comment.—CLS

Your goal when seeking employment is to fill out as many job applications as you can each day. Volume is more important than quality. You can’t be too choosy when trying to get a new job. Since you’re aiming for a high volume of job applications, don’t actually bother reading the job listings. Reading’s for suckers and all you really need to know is who and where to send your resume.

Speaking of resumes, the days of one page resumes printed on paper are over. Make sure you’ve got a QR code on a business card that’s keyed to your resume. Since you’re probably using a PDF file for your resume, feel free to make your CV as extensive as possible. Four to five page resumes are the industry standard these days. Keep up!

Facts don’t matter anymore, so feel free to put whatever you want on the resume if you think it’ll improve your chances of getting the job. If a prospective employer calls you out on your bullshit, just let them know you thought so highly of them and the potential job you’re willing to say and do anything to get hired. That’s dedication, and employers will appreciate that level of hustle.

If a prospective employer calls, make them wait to hear from you. Have you never heard of the three day rule for dating? The same holds true for getting hired. Employers want you to make them chase you. Play hard to get. You’ll appreciate it when you’re negotiating your salary from a place of power later.

This part is highly, HIGHLY important: Make sure you put your pronouns in your resume. Especially if you’re nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. It’s super important to make sure everyone in your prospective workplace knows your pronouns and uses them. Inclusivity is big in today’s workforce. Furthermore, your employer should be affirming to your chosen pronouns and explain to every customer or client entering your workplace why you’re a special person who needs to be addressed in a special way only you and your employer understand. Furthermore, if some asshole client or customer doesn’t use your preferred pronouns, then fuck everybody. Your bosses and workplace deserve the PR nightmare they’ve got coming.

If you’re LGBTQ+, make sure you bring this up to your prospective employer as soon as possible during your interview. Ask your potential new boss how they’ve been allies to the LGBTQ community. Grill them about the equity initiatives they have for queer employees. If none exist, call the bigot out! They’re supposed to cater to you. They’re trying to hire YOU, remember? If they can’t be accommodating, then they don’t deserve you.

Whatever you do, if the interviewer is white, make sure to call them racist. Racism, after all, is power plus oppression according to noted scholar Ibram X. Kendi. If your interviewer balks at this, then they’re clearly not antiracist and not worth your time further. UNLESS they offer to sponsor DEI and antiracist training sponsored by Robin D’Angelo and Dr. Kendi. That’s enough penance to make sure your workplace respects people of color sufficiently.

Record every interaction with your employer. You can buy a miniature recorder for $40 on Amazon the size of a pack of gum with an excellent microphone. This will provide necessary insurance for you in case you get terminated for some bullshit reason. Just make sure you’ve packaged all your recordings in .mp3 format before you send them to an enterprising reporter at VICE or The Daily Beast.

Employers these days pay thousands of dollars to HR and Communications professionals to teach them how to communicate effectively with their employees. Therefore it’s on them to discover whether it’s more important to your mental health to be communicated to via phone call, in person discussion, emails, texts, Zoom meetings, or even carrier pigeons. If they can’t adapt to your communication style of choice then that’s an easy workplace harassment suit for you to win. After all they’re oppressing you by not speaking to you in the manner you choose to be addressed, which makes you a victim. Easy money!

When you get texted for an interview and given a time and place to show up, remember it’s a polite suggestion. If you don’t feel like showing up it’s perfectly acceptable to simply ghost the interviewer. For extra points block them and then complain to the employer’s HR department when you don’t get the job because they didn’t speak to your personal needs.

Remember above all else this job exists for your personal enjoyment and nothing else. If you don’t like the job, just walk out one day and never return. You can leave company materials on the office front porch in the middle of the night. Life is too short to worry about things like whether you’ll get employed again! Live in the moment!

Dress codes are suggestions, not rules. Who cares about outdated, privileged notions like “Professionalism” or “Integrity?” Those sound like made up words white cishet men made up to keep you down!

If you get the job make sure to ask your fellow employees how much they make on the firs day of work. If you don’t clearly articulate this to everyone you work with there’s no chance of all of you unionizing and bartering with your employer for a collective bargaining agreement that sees all of you getting paid more. “WE’RE IN THE MONEY” should be your fight song!