If we weren’t already gainfully employed, we’d be all over this one. I mean, it’s not every day a job listing promises a working environment complete with “hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches.” And the kind of news you’d be covering if you land the job? “We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery.”
These are the amazing words of Matthew Doig, who’s hiring for the investigative team at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. And Doig’s very clearly written the best job listing in the history of humankind. Take, for instance, Doig’s absolutely dead on (I know, I lived and worked there) description of living and working in Florida:
For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterf***s. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.
For the person who gets the gig, Doig promises “hellish, soul-sucking” work and a chance to hole up “in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thoursands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble.”
Is there a religion built around this guy yet? I feel like I’ve been saved.
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