Mr. Whine Seller arrives home.

WS: I need to read this to you.

I proceed to read him the entirety of this TameBay post: Blogging Job: Vendio wants a new blogger without commentary. I finish and look at him. 

Mr. WS: Holy crap, that’s so sleazy!

WS: I know, right?

Mr. WS: And that’s from Vendio? I thought we liked Vendio…

WS: We do! Which is why I don’t get this. I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that there’s one bad egg out there that put this out without asking anyone else in the company or, you know, thinking at all. And $50 to $100 a post? NO ONE pays that much per blog post. It’s like promising they’ll pay you in unicorn teeth. And then they’ll give you $300 worth of service and an iPad all for this “job.” I mean, this is not my imagination, right? This is weird on many levels.

Mr. WS: No, it’s definitely weird. It’s like they just wanted to have a contest for publicity and then someone thought, but if we call it a job people will be more interested.

WS: That’s the thing that steams me. I feel like they are trying to exploit people looking for work instead of calling a spade a spade and saying, “We’re having a contest.” If they were upfront about it being a contest, I would be happily promoting this for them. For that matter, if they were legitimately looking for an employee and had said something like “Write a blog post on the topic of your choice and then email or DM us the link to it.” without the BS prizes and the request that they give the link backs I’d be 100% cool with that and would probably even apply. But like this? How can they pretend this is anything other than a way to make people link to Vendio and EcommerceWriter so that they get the benefits of outside links, especially when your options are to write a blog post about an e-commerce topic of your choice or, to paraphrase, kiss their ass. You have no idea how badly I want to write a blog post about this calling them out.

Mr. WS: Do it! People expect you to call companies on their bullsh-. Anyone who reads that “job post” is going to see there’s something off about it but everyone else is going to be all Emperor’s New Clothes about it and not say anything because they want the money and prizes.

WS: Hell, I’d take the money and prizes. (laugh) I just realized something. If I write a post calling them out on this, I’ll actually be “applying” for their “job” because I’ll be linking to their sites.

We both cackle about this for a while.

Mr. WS: You know what’s the best thing about that, though? By calling them out on this complete BS stunt, you’re actually doing exactly what they asked for.

WS: You mean giving them free publicity and link backs?

Mr. WS: Well, that too. But they asked “job applicants” to write a post explaining why they’d be the perfect candidate for the job. And if everyone else applying doesn’t see why this was tacky and beneath their company then you’ve just shown them why they desperately need someone with their head on straight and who will point out when something makes the company look bad like this because, clearly, they don’t have that person now. They know you’re one of their biggest cheerleaders, basically the exact person they probably were hoping would “apply” for this and if they realize how much this lowered your estimation of them, that should be a hell of a wake-up call. By blasting them, you’ll actually make the case that you’re the best person for the job.

WS: Except for the whole, they’ll hate me for giving them bad publicity thing. You know what? Screw it. I’m going to write the post but I’m not going to send them the link to my “application” to enter because, lets be honest, no company that runs a Link to Us and Kiss Our Ass contest that they call a job post wants someone like me as their blogger. Anyone who actually wants to hire me for a real writing gig knows where to find me.