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Those with two-page résumés need not apply

By Ed Goldman

I saw a job listing the other  day for an “Indoor Skydiving Instructor” based in the city of Roseville, about a 20-minute drive from my home in Sacramento. I’m not kidding about any of this—neither the job nor the location of Roseville.

Wish I could share more deets with you about the position but the employment agency’s website was locked unless I became a subscriber to it. I didn’t mind. I think I preferred imagining what the job entailed to finding out if it all made perfect sense.

It did make me curious about other possible vocations, however:

FULLTIME TRUCK DRIVING TUTOR/No license required.  Even so, the successful applicant must have played with Tonka toys well into adulthood. Your skill-set should include making gear-shifting sounds with your mouth. Points will be awarded for those who can best contain their saliva (this is our no-drool school rule). Apply today. We still have vrroooom.

BRAIN SURGEON (REMOTE). We’re also recruiting for ROCKET SCIENTIST TRAINEES. Please be clear in your job application which one you’re applying for because it’s not like we consider “brain surgery” to be rocket science, if you catch our drift.

UNDERWATER FORK LIFT OPERATOR I and UNDERWATER FORK LIFT OPERATOR II. The first job (“I”) does the actual work. “II’s” responsibilities include watching “I” do the work and whispering encouraging words while wearing a face mask, SCUBA tank and battery-powered microphone but never actually entering the water. Familiarity with Adobe Photoshop is a plus because we’d like to learn it here in the office.

MAGAZINE EDITOR. This deceptively worded job title has nothing to do with periodicals or journals. Instead, the successful candidate will be tasked with cutting down some of the ammunition in our “magazines”—the storage and feeding gadgets for repeating firearms. Extra points if you think one of those is a gun that goes “Bang! Bang!”

ECONO-COURT REPORTER. Typing skills not mandatory. Instead, to save our clients some money, we hire people to simply listen as well as they can at trials and hearings—then summarize, as best they can, what went on at the proceedings. You can use a Number 2 pencil or midnight-blue Crayola to jot down what you think everyone was yammering about. You’ll advance quickly if you can also delineate who was speaking at any given time but this shouldn’t be a stressor for you: we have in-house people who are pretty good at figuring it out—when they show up, of course. They work on a hybrid basis: one-fifth of the week at the office, three-fifths at the racetrack, and the remaining one fifth in assisted living.

MULTILINGUAL MIMES. For the vision-impaired who’d otherwise have no idea you were acting out someone trapped in a cube. BYOB (bring your own beret.)

FAUX HANDICAPPED-PARKING PLACARD DESIGNER. Our goal is to make these easier to fake since about one out of every eight California drivers has one, according to ABC News—whereas only 5.8 percent of the state’s entire population is physically disabled.