Viral

This dystopian job advert has gone viral for all the wrong reasons

This dystopian job advert has gone viral for all the wrong reasons
Alamy/Twitter

That life can be stranger than fiction is a well-worn cliché.

But it’s a struggle to think of any novelist living or dead who could serve up such a blood-curdlingly dystopian set of words as those posted on job site Indeed by a Radisson hotel recruiter.

Forget all other heart-wrenching examples of “late-stage capitalism” – this job advert is the only thing future historians will need to see how badly it all went wrong.

The advert starts in excited caps:

"WE CONNECT WITH THAT AGELESS MILLENNIAL MINDSET AND BELIEVE THAT HOTELS CAN ENHANCE THEIR WORLD VIA ART, MUSIC, FASHION AND A DISTINCTIVE CONNECTION"

The reader will later realise that this is the point they should have turned back. With the next sentence, it's already too late.

“Radisson RED sees things differently. We don’t have ‘staff’ we have ‘Creatives’.”

It becomes apparent that re-packaging zero-hour contracts under the guise of "creative" is really what's at play.

"Cleaner" becomes "MAKE IT CLEAN CREATIVE".

"Commis chef" is now "CREATIVE - KITCHEN".

"Porters" are "guests' superheroes".

All on zero-hour contracts.

The rest is visceral, dynamic prose, taking you on a wild ride through all of your simultaneous tasks at the hotel.

“…now you are flipping an omelette, catch it!” the advert screams.

“This place is alive and you love it. Smile. Photo.”

It's like the most saccharine game shows of the Noughties, but only the fittest will survive, the losers strung up in the lobby as part of a Hunger Games-themed social media advertising strategy, smiling all the while.

The whirlwind journey ends with the statement “…even a little bit of mischief now and again…at RED we demand it”, somehow giving a word often used in children's books insidious implications.

The internet was horrified and amused in equal measure.

Others questioned non-human intervention...and what the job actually entailed.

Read more: An Instagram influencer failed to sell 36 t-shirts to her 2 million followers

The Conversation (0)
x