Malt maker’s job listing blunder garners applicants
It was a rant never meant to be made public when a frustrated farmer accidentally posted a tongue-in-cheek job advertisement that raised eyebrows.
‘‘Are you soft?’’ the job listing began. ‘‘Then keep scrolling elsewhere because this job is probably not for you!’’
It went on to say: ‘‘If you haven’t got a whole tribe of parasites (oxygen-deprived family members) feeding off your hard work, making you a depressing person to be around, then you may just be lucky enough that our team will let you join us.’’
The Seek advertisement for a plant operator at Gladfield Malt near Dunsandel in Canterbury doubled down on the ouch factor when it was listed last week, particularly with what the job had to offer.
‘‘Well, the first thing is, you can kick for touch that PC, two-faced double standard workplace that you are currently working at (the one that everyone tells you is the new norm),’’ the advert stated, ‘‘and get back to working at a place where you don’t have to apologise for waking up every morning.’’
While the advertisement has subsequently been edited, farmer Doug Michael, a co-owner of Gladfield Malt, explained that his ‘‘rant’’ had been in response to trouble he had been experiencing with hiring staff. It was never meant to be seen, he said.
Having been sick with flu at a busy time on the farm, Michael and his wife, Gabi Michael, had little time left in their day, he said. Trying to find a ‘‘resilient’’ employee who would last more than a week was proving challenging with the current shortages in the labour market, he said. So sorting through more than 200 automatically generated responses to a job listing and interviewing a number of people were not tasks he relished.
In writing a joke job listing, Michael got his feelings out.
‘‘This is a family-owned business,’’ he warned. ‘‘By no means is that code name for ‘a day spa’.’’
‘‘It was a good way for me to calm down,’’ he said with a laugh, recalling what happened next after he put off rewriting the advert for a few days only to find his wife had accidentally posted it online without reading the acerbic words.
‘‘It was a bit of a balls-up by me . . . That will teach me!’’ Michael said.
Perhaps surprisingly, the original advert garnered some genuine applicants, although the offer of a free beer every night may have been the clincher.
Michael is not alone in struggling to find staff, with North Canterbury Federated Farmers president Caroline Aymes saying dairy farms and agricultural contractors continue to face labour shortages.
‘‘It’s still really challenging, and I know of quite a few farms who have roles open.’’
Nikko Asset Management head of equities Stuart Williams recently told The Press the shortage of employees across all industries was a crisis. ‘‘I’m struggling to think of a single industry that wouldn’t welcome more workers right now.’’
For Michael, the exodus of Kiwis offshore after they had been held back for two years by a pandemic was compounding the situation.
‘‘We pay really good money here, and we’ve got a bloody good team. It’s been bloody tough.’’