Job hunting.

Over the past couple of days, three separate friends have sent me job notices. (No. No. And no. I am not looking for a new job.)

They're notices that speak to the sorry decline--if not  the demise--of our industry.

Here's the first. It's not necessarily the most irritating.

It comes from FCB Health. Now, I don't usually call out agency names in this space. But I'm pissed. 

I always thought it was illegal to discriminate on the basis of age. But here you have it. An agency seeking "young and bold talent." I wonder if you're ineligible if you're "young and italic."

The second is apparently an ad by a recruiter who is a "brand sorceress" looking for "unicorn employees."

See that spoon? Gag me with it.

Do sentient people really talk like this. I'd be damned--even if I were a real-life sorcerer--if I'd ever call myself one. Much less admit I was looking for a horny horse.

Finally, and maybe most dispiriting is an ad so disheartening I will say nothing about it. Except I'll ask you to read the copy, which is clearly written by an algorithm--and a dumb, ungrammatical one at that.

Somewhere along the line--maybe midway through my (so-far) 34-year career, advertising stopped being a respectable profession and became, instead, low wage, unicorny and irresponsible.

That probably happened around the time some uncreative ass, feeling insecure in his lack of creativity, decided to pontificate that "everyone is creative."

Sorry.

That's like saying everyone can do brain surgery, or even cook a nice al dente pasta. 

Doing stuff well takes talent, training and dedication. 

And it's by reasserting those values, and only by reasserting those values, that we might, one day, start making some slow progress backward. 

That we might be what we once were.