The social media industry is a fast paced, 24/7 conversation and keeping on top of positive or negative situations to maximise or minimise their exposure is a constant challenge and requires someone who lives and breathes social media outside of normal work hours.
– from here
this is from a job posted by Air New Zealand. The applicant is required to be a qualified Animator – which might imply the manipulation of social expectations, like bringing lies to life. This ungenerous inference would appear to be supported by the requirement to keep on top of – in and beyond work hours – both positive and negative situations. What situations? It sounds like a risky business. Air New Zealand’s reputation is at stake.
I like the idea of encountering risk, having to make snap decisions either to accentuate the positive, giving the good oil on Air New Zealand maximum exposure, or to put a lid on the negative, shutting it down! The job ad also mentions viral. So imagine the nooks and crannies, labyrinthine, a byzantine undertaking, the lengths the applicant might have to be prepared to go, the stamina call on, the coffees and choc bars to stay awake, long after he or she has officially clocked out. It’s 24/7 in here!
That’s what I dislike, a job ad already demanding that the successful applicant work outside of normal hours.
There is a scary “out there” invoked by this job ad, in here. The applicant will be intrepid, a risk-taker, but also a kind of slave to this idea. He or she will have to be “out there” and to live and breathe it. And out there is where it’s all going on. Both the good and the bad for Air New Zealand. Negative situations will arise as easily and quickly as positive – at any time.
It’s chaos, but it’s your mission to face it, to keep on top of it. To keep on top of yourself, and not ask for overtime.
It’s also clear that the ad targets the subaltern, the younger applicant, who is working under a Manager, although it merely states “closely with” this person and their teams. This is a fantastic opportunity for a “social media expert to take their OE in London.”
The only stated technical requirement, for the applicant to have proficiency in the “WordPress blog platform,” goes some way to undermining the idea that Air New Zealand actually know what they are asking for. I will try to start a viral campaign from WordPress…. … … Watch this space!
The image of the ‘space’ I find most interesting. The wild wild world wide web. I’d apply for the job, strap my viral campaign toolkit to my laptop, carefully hidden under the disinformation “WordPress blog platform,” and OE in a London I’d never see for working 24/7 in the wwwww. on part wages, but I’m too old.
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