The job description was written in an overly breezy style, making it clear this was not the typical corporate sweatshop. (Sample sentence, describing the workday: "Before you know it, it’s five and you’re on the way to happy hour at [latest trendy hipster hotspot] with your significant other. Heck yeah!") As the company makes Crosley turntables as well as furniture, the love for music, particularly vinyl records, was also very prominent. After applying, I was asked to submit a handful of sample copy blurbs for some products and a blog post about the renewed interest in vinyl. Those passed muster and led to a phone interview. In it, the interviewer told me he had found my writing "playful," "easy to read," and "jumping out at the reader." He talked about his love of vinyl—see a trend?—his tattoos, and pop culture. A significant part of the interview, however, was nothing less than bizarre and had virtually nothing to do with my extensive experience or abilities as a copywriter: It was a borderline creepy, thinly veiled age test "game" called "Hot or Not?" in which I was to rate various pop culture entities (Skrillex, bacon, skinny jeans, cats, the Left Shark) as "hot" or "not," free association style. (I am not making this up.) Despite my age (a Google search revealed I was one to more than two decades older than my two would-be bosses) I am well aware of all of those things, and I know I aced it. Nevertheless, I did not get an offer. I cannot help but think they were more interested in finding someone to party with than anything.
