Finding my Calling in Life . . . Or at least realizing my skills are valued by the porn industry

And suddenly, it became clear to me why they were still looking for someone to fill his job after three months of searching.

But I’ll start at the beginning because as Julie Andrews once said (or sang), “It’s a very good place to start.”

I began looking for work a few months back. In the meantime, I’ve done some freelance work, finished some papers for school, started my thesis, banged my head against the wall (a few hundred times), and managed to find a job. Well, kind of. The short story is that after a few offers—which I didn’t want—I decided to take a part-time job in addition to my freelance editing/writing work.

Said job began a few weeks ago and consisted of me working for approximately a week after which I was informed that they didn’t exactly have a budget for me yet and would I mind waiting another few weeks to begin my position. Needless to say, I was not amused and began the soul-destroying search for work again. My somewhat more spiritual tendencies are giving my cynical side a dirty look right now implying that we should try to make all of our experiences in life opportunities to learn about ourselves. In fact, I have learned a lot about myself—and about my wonderful husband, who has managed to put up with me, the depressed troll of a job-seeker I’ve become. Yet the cynical side prevails—looking for a job, in today’s abysmal market, with a master’s degree in something other than telemarketing or secretarial duties is soul-destroying.

But then I got the call. After applying for a number of content writing jobs--because, hey, if nothing else, I know how to talk (and type) a blue streak—I got a call from a headhunter company about my resume. “Adi” informed me that my skills seemed suited to a hi-tech company looking for a content writer. “Sounds great,” I said to her. “What’s the name of the company?” To maintain their privacy (and prevent me from being sued . . . AGAIN), let’s just call them “Cool Runnings.” I’d heard of Cool Runnings before and had in fact sent them my resume a few months ago for a content writer position. Their website stated that they were a young and dynamic company which manages a number of recreational websites. They were looking for a native English speaker who “thinks outside the box.” I thought to myself, “I’m their gal. I’m a creative, liberal thinker. I’m young, hip, and well, ‘cool’ like their company name.” But no call came for several months. Only this week, when Adi spoke to me, did I realize it was the same position.

“They’re a hi-tech company in every way,” she explained. “Ok,” I said. “And the content is in the field of ‘entertainment for adults,” she continued. “Excuse me?” I asked, buying a bit of time to try to figure out if my brain correctly understood the Hebrew phrase she used—and if, in fact, that phrase meant the same thing in Israel. “Entertainment for adults,” she repeated. “Hmm. . . ok,” I said, hesitating before asking the inevitable. “So, I’m a bit embarrassed to ask,” I said, because obviously it couldn’t be what I was thinking she meant, “Is it in a bit more . . .ummm . . . blue direction?” “Listen,” she said, “It’s not a porno company or something.” “So, what do you they do?” “Dating sites, that kind of thing.” “Ok,” I thought, “Like J-date, or E-harmony.”

As it turns it, it was soooooo not like J-date (at least not the J-date I’m used to hearing about). When the company manager called to speak with me, she immediately asked me if I knew what the company did. “Content management?” I asked innocently. “Dating sites, no? Something like that?” I continued hopefully. And after a flowery speech about the fifteen million users of their website (which it is important to mention impressed me), she laid it all out for me. “We’re looking for something to write content for our sex site.” After a stunned silence, a few questions should come to your mind: 1) What “content” is there really on a sex site? 2) As popular as porn is on the internet, you call yourselves successful for having only 15 million users? 3) Do you really think most native English speakers in Israel really made Aliyah and moved to the Holy Land to write for porn sites? 4) Did you not read on my resume that I have worked for a feminist organization, a yeshiva, and have edited books in the academia? I’m sorry, sentences such as, “Hi, I’m Candy, wanna ^%&$?” never really came up in the articles I edited on the role of mass communication in modern democracies or discourse analysis in politics.

Also, can we just imagine for a moment where this job can take me in the future? I’m picturing at my next job interview, a few years down the line: “So Becky, what did you do at Cool Runnings?” “Oh, it was great, I wrote content for them.” “Really, where could we find some of your work?” “Well, don’t bother looking in the New York Times, or even the Jerusalem Post—your best bet is to probably Google ‘hot chicks’ or something of that nature.”

As I post this, I am just wondering how many people will probably accidentally arrive at my blog from searching for “hot chicks” and will be sorely disappointed at the lack of “hot chicks” on this page. Of course, now that I’ve written those keywords a few times, I’m sure my search engine optimization has gone up. Maybe I’ll have fifteen million users soon? Nahhhh . . .I think there may be too much actual content here.

Note: I did NOT go to the job interview for this position (there was just a bit of confusion regarding that point for some of my readers . . . some of whom that that maybe I should have!).