Seattle Bookkeeper Ad Draws One Absurdly Overqualified Applicant
A desperate job seeker responds to a meager help-wanted ad with a resume that puts modern multitasking to shame.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An advertisement in a newspaper calling for 'a first-class bookkeeper at $3 a week' called forth the following answer, the only one attracted by the munificent salary: 'I am a young man, 27 years of age, having had a business experience of 10 years, being connected with the United States embassy at Madagascar, and feel confident if you give me a trial I can prove my worth to you. I am not only an expert bookkeeper, proficient stenographer and typewriter, excellent operator and erudite college graduate, but have other accomplishments which might make me desirable. I am an experienced snow shoveler, a first-class peanut roaster, have some knowledge of removing superfluous hair and clipping puppy dogs; have a medal for reciting 'Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight,' am a skilled chiropodist and practical farmer, can also cook, take care of horses, crease trousers, open oysters and repair umbrellas. Being possessed of great physical beauty, I would not only be useful but decorative as well, lending to the sacred precincts of your office that aesthetic charm that a Statuary vase or stuffed billy goat would. As to salary I would feel I was robbing the widow and wiping the orphan's eye if I were to take advantage of your munificence by accepting the fabulous sum of $3 per week, and I would be entirely willing to give you my services for less, and by accepting $1.37 per week would give you an opportunity of not only justifying your donation to the church but your business and rise up your life insurance.'
“As to salary I would feel I was robbing the widow and wiping the orphan's eye if I were to take advantage of your munificence by accepting the fabulous sum of $3 per week.”
This 1899 satirical job application captures the absurdity of 'hustle culture'—the expectation that workers should be endlessly versatile, self-sacrificing, and decorative for starvation wages—a sentiment that resonates sharply with modern precarious labor.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.