If I get this job history will be made

[jmowreader]

Today I'm flipping through the fayettenam observer's employment ads when I come across an ad looking for "sales professionals" for a new advertising agency in town--Third Rail Advertising. They claim to be the most "progressive" agency in the state.

http://www.thirdrailadvertising.com

I vaguely remember these guys from a job fair I went to a few months back...oh yeah, they're the ones who do brochures using Microsoft Publisher templates (that don't fold properly) and who take pictures of models in bad hair and worse makeup. Apparently "most progressive" is a synonym for "worst."

So I send 'em a letter. I told them I was interested in working for them but only as an art director, because (and yes, I used this exact phrase) you suck and I will make you not suck. Then I pulled up their "Internet advertising" page, copied and pasted the text, and pointed out that if I was looking for an advertising agency I wouldn't choose one who couldn't write. I then rewrote their copy into something that didn't contain one error per five words, added a point-of-purchase display I made, listed my skill set, and sent it off.

If they answer back I'll be shocked. If they HIRE me I'll be ecstatic.

But in all recorded history, I don't think anyone's ever received a job by telling their potential employer how bad they suck. Even when they do.

[KG]

1. ya never know, there might be a working brain in that org.

like cos. that hire a former hacker to oversee the network security.

[pagerbear]

2. Was this out of the blue or in response to a job listing?

Was your communication to an executive or to a recruiter/HR person?

[jmowreader]

8. They're looking for "sales professionals"

I figure that before you try selling something, you need something worthy of being sold.

The job fair I saw them at was most informative...they said they worked with "every industry." Well...unless you're DDB (who has 25,000 people working for it) you do NOT work with "every industry." You CAN'T work with every industry. You cannot sell auto parts to repair shops unless you understand the auto repair business.

Okay, brave a trip to their shittily-written website and click on the Internet tab. Read that, then read my version of the same thing:

"I found it on the Internet."

How many times have you heard that? How many times have you SAID it?

In today's ever-more-competitive business climate, having a presence on the Internet isn't helpful. It's crucial. If you aren't online, you're irrelevant.

Your customers love the Internet. They can press a few buttons, click a couple of times, and pay bills, order any product you can imagine and many you can't, plan trips, buy stocks, even play games. It's easy, it's fun...and it beats "your business is very important to us, please stay on the line for the next available operator." When you're online, every customer is her own "next available operator."

To compete in the business world of today, you need a great-looking, easy-to-use website, and your customers have to be able to find it. That's where we come in. We design beautiful, easy-to-navigate sites your customers will want to return to time and again. We also help you achieve top rankings on major search engines, promote your site through banner advertising on other popular websites, and integrate your online presence into your other advertising.

[KG]

3. OMG - I went to their site. 'every story begin with silence'?

[NMDemDist2]

4. I'll guarantee one thing

Your resume will stand out from the crowd's and *will* get noticed!!

:rofl:

[evlbstrd]

5. If you touch the Third Rail, it'll kill you.

In the flash intro, they have a teenager (?) with poor enunciation skills and the music level is too high. It drowns her out.
You could end up working with a bunch of interns.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. You're right. They suck.

"Motivation exists in many forms. From concept origination to the last pixel, syllable, and segment we are present to witness the foundation of your dreams erected to fruition by innovation. The science of commerce and human nature are unfolded and stitched with creativity to produce marketing and advertising that elicit the desire to recognize, know, and want you, your business idealized. We are motivation."

:rofl:

"Witness the foundation of your dreams erected to fruition"? :rofl: Jeez, they can't even write coherent ad copy for themselves! I wouldn't hire these guys to advertise a kid's lemonade stand.

I hope they hire you and you can make them not suck -- a task that might pose a considerable challenge.

[elehhhhna]

19. erected to fruition

ouch

[evlbstrd]

7. You should go for creative director.

Then replace the entire staff. Their stuff sucks.

edited for embarrassingly self-incriminating typo.

[DS1]

9. Terrible logo typography

It looks like Thir Drail

[grace0418]

11. Seriously bad. Have they ever heard of kerning? I can't believe they have the audacity to say

"image is everything" on their home page with the shit design they employ.

[DS1]

12. Kerning wouldn't even help

there's no capital letter in that font which will go next to that R

[grace0418]

13. True. But at least they could make it look at little closer to Third Rail instead of Thir Drail.

Not that it matters. The logo hit the suck button long before the spacing issues.

[jmowreader]

14. There is a way to save that logo...

you blow off the length of the stem of the R, track the D back so the spacing between the BOWL of the R and the left-hand leg of the D are like the spacing between the rest of the letters, reverse out the point where the stem of the R crosses the leg of the D, and pretend you did it on purpose.

Hey, it could be worse...I had a customer once who loved italic Garamond but hated italic Garamond's minuscule h. Granjonesque italics--Claude Garamond died before italics were invented, so another typographer named Robert Granjon extended the Garamond face to include italic cuttings (yes, I knew this) contain Granjon's little hallmark, this weird foot on his minuscule italic h--it hooks in under the bowl instead of curving out like normal people do. My customer didn't like the inward hook, so he had me go into his jobs, find all theinstances of italic minuscule h, and change them to a different face. After doing this twice, the fucker sent me a 200-page book that was FULL of italics. I cranked up Fontographer, built a typeface for him and sent it up to him. He was just so happy.

Oh....this page is worse...http://www.thethirdrailstudio.com/editorial.php

[grace0418]

15. Holy run-on sentence Batman! And it's on the page titled EDITORIAL!

If it wasn't so hilarious I'd be terrified that this company can actually stay in business.

Of course, if the shit-ass company I work for can stay in business, anything is possible.

[jmowreader]

17. Read down...

For example, which caption captivates you more? "Thousands of women are lost to breast cancer every year, please help us find a cure." Or "Women are dying. Wear pink. Save lives."

Shouldn't that have been "statement" instead of "caption" and "motivates" instead of "captivates"?

Also, "Women are dying. Save lives. Wear pink." --or-- just "Save lives. Wear pink." would have been better than that thing they wrote, the sentence that buried the action you wanted achieved (sales of pink things) in the MIDDLE of the phrase. The last one's better; you can make a logo out of it and put it on buttons.

[grace0418]

18. It's just bad all the way around. No writer worth his/her salt would think

"which caption captivates" is a good turn of phrase. I'm not even a writer but, after working for years in advertising, I know good copy when I see it.

[skygazer]

20. I like this little gem -

"Also, people just don't read the way they used to, being concise is quintessential when conveying a message."

Nice way to be concise. :rofl:

[grace0418]

10. You'll be swimming upstream dude. I've been there. I was hired along with another woman

(who is also extremely talented) to help revitalize and revamp all the design of my department (stationery products). They hired us because of our funky, edgy, modern design sense. Within months we were both designing shit with "country geese" and teddy bears on it and told to stop complaining. Every fresh idea we came up with was nixed or bastardized into some god-awful piece of shit.

To add insult to injury, it always seemed like the leggy blond "consultant" for the company (who, shockingly, later became the CEO's wife) would come up with a bunch of "brilliant" ideas for us to implement. And somehow they always looked quite a bit like the ideas we'd offered, and that got nixed, about six months earlier. Then of course it would be all her idea and "wasn't she just so talented" and "we need you guys to come up with stuff like that" and so on.

So we either get to design total crap and try to not to vomit. Or we get to be the production artists for all of Mrs. CEO's "fabulous" recycled ideas. Either way it sucks.

I've learned my lesson. If a company makes shit and doesn't seem to be aware that it's shit, nothing is going to change when you start working there. Except for the fact that then YOU'LL be designing shit.

[amitten]

16. Good Christ that site is terrible. Does the person that wrote the

content even speak English?

I had to read and then re-read every single sentence. Whadda mess!