back to article Job ad for designer proves its point with MS Paint shocker

The City of Los Angeles has sparked plenty of chuckles with a job ad for a “Graphics Designer” that shows how desperately a new hire is needed by apparently using Microsoft Paint to illustrate the opportunity. The local government authority posted the ad to Twitter last Friday, as follows. https://t.co/rVbTTIAFBR pic.twitter. …

  1. seven of five

    Actually...

    I quite like the ad, bit of tongue in cheek humor.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Thumb Up

      I quite like the ad, bit of tongue in cheek humor.

      Not something you usually associate with Americans (except perhaps New Englanders).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: John Smith

        Obviously, you've never set foot in New England.

      2. Trilkhai

        Re: I quite like the ad, bit of tongue in cheek humor.

        @John Smith 19 — I can't speak for the rest of California, but tongue–in–cheek humor is definitely common in my part of the SF Bay Area.

    2. Korev Silver badge
    3. JoJ

      Re: Actually...

      Into my fourth decade in advertising, only because of legal issues that prohibit euthanasia, I will gladly confirm that that is a very good advertisment indeed. Of course I couldn't say that in real life unless we'd extracted a six figure budget for opinion groups, colour psychology reaction cohesion, intranet-compliant cognitive impairment perdition therapy for the hapless customer employee who obviously doesn't realize that we his master's agency can fire anyone daring to touch and despoil our magnificence...

      But the little echo of who once thought this advertising game was easy and so imagine how I'd be able to do so well... that voice definitely approved.

  2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Polygraph Examiner

    Why would a city hire someone to administer a test that has been shown to be unreliable and easily fooled?

    What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers?

    1. Lysenko

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers?

      You forgot homoeopathy, prayer and the mystic power of pyramids.

      I remember playing with an FBI approved polygraph at University. It took less than ten minutes to learn how to force a "lie" response to all control questions and render the pile of junk useless as it registered everything as deceptive. The lecturer (who was heavily into yoga and meditation etc) could flatline the thing on any question except when being told jokes.

    2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers? Trump?

      1. Dr_N

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        >What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers? Trump?

        If you leave out phrenology you need your head examined.

        1. Robert Moore
          Coat

          Re: Polygraph Examiner

          What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers? Trump?

          If you leave out phrenology you need your head examined.

          I prefer Reverse Phrenology. Where you change the bumps on the head to change the personality. Cheap and very effective. :)

          Mine's the one with a large wrench in the pocket.

      2. Chemical Bob
        Unhappy

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        "What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers? Trump?"

        Unfortunately, Trump is very real. He is our Godzilla.

      3. JimboSmith Silver badge

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        What other pseudo-science do they use there? Graphology? Lay Lines? Crystals? Dowsers? Tea-leave readers? Trump?

        You may be surprised but a large merchant bank in the UK used to use Graphology I believe. What they'd make of my scrawls (if they could read it) is anyone's guess.

    3. kain preacher

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      Because people like the FBI/CIA still thinks it's a good way to determine security clearances and to administer it yearly to see if their people are lying .

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      The reading of pam and her five lovely sisters.

      1. A.A.Hamilton

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        I'm going to report this as 'abuse' on the basis that it makes me feel totally ignorant.

    5. Korev Silver badge

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      I agree about the test.... However they can be useful if the subject doesn't know that. I don't know how you could work out if s/he does before the test without giving the game away.

      1. Tomato42

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        @ Korev

        > I don't know how you could work out if s/he does before the test without giving the game away.

        "Oh, that's simple! Ask him under polygraph!" — FBI

    6. A K Stiles
      Joke

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      "Tea-leave readers?"

      Is that a subtle term for native Brexit supporters?

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        Surely the original tea-leavers were in Boston in 1773?

      2. Colin Guthrie

        Re: Polygraph Examiner

        "Oh, what can it mean to a daydream tea-leaver and a Homecoming queeeeeeee eeeen?"

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      Please, we who know anything about dowsing at all resent being compared to Polygraph Examiners, Homeopaths, astrologists and other quacks!

      1. Stevie

        Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

        Dowsing: Doesn't work.

        There ya go.

        Umptytump blind tests by JREF can't be wrong.

        1. EarthDog

          Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

          what about double blind randomized with a control?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

            No serious dowser will ever be part of such a test because there's no neutral scientists doing the testing. They know they WILL be shamed. (both the dowsers and the scientists)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

          Please, do you think ANYONE who knows anything at all about dowsing will come close to the James Randi 'Educational Foundation'?

          The dowsing I do is with metal probes, usually just thick wire. Take 2 pieces, about 2.5' long each, and two pieces of metal tubing, at least as long as your hands are wide. Insert the wires into the tubing, and add two bends, to secure the tubing at one end of the wire, but not so tight that it can't move freely. The bends should be 90degrees, so that when you hold a tube vertically, the wire points horisontally.

          Hold one probe in each hand, about a foot apart, elbows close to the side of your body, and the lower arms level.

          Walk in a steady pace while holding the tubes as steady as possible.

          When you near an 'anomaly' the probes will usually begin to move towards each other, and finally cross as you pass over the 'anomaly'.

          This anomaly may be metal, water or anything else that can change the local geomagnetic field.

          There's no indication of how massive or how deep the anomaly is, and of course, ground conditions will have an influence.

          Trying to dowse in the rain is of course useless.

          Why some seems more sensitive than others(I'm barely over 50% hit rate), if your clothing matters or anything is not something being researched.

          Exactly HOW your body and the wires work with the geomagnetic field is unknown, and there's not a single scientist in the world willing to even look at a theory in fear of being brutally destroyed by debunkers.

          Which is also why you'll never see any good dowsers being 'tested' by JREF...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

            I had a go once, with what sounds like a similar set-up (although I suspect it was just wire coat hangers stuck into empty biro cases). Some hippy handed them to me at a stone circle and they did indeed cross over consistently at certain places in and around the circle. I can't explain it - it was most bizarre...

          2. Stevie

            Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

            JREF rules said that the dowser need not explain HOW they do what they do, nor why, only to demonstrate the effect with results beyond those predicted by statistics.

            JREF rules said that the dowser and JREF representatives would work together to design the testing, but that all applicants had to first pass a double blind test.

            Not one dowser applicant passed that double blind (and there were many that tried).

            James Randi said in the public blog attached to that challenge that of all applicants to the testing procedure, only dowsers honestly believed they could do what they said and they were honestly bewildered when the DB tests produced the results they did.

            No shaming involved.

            Question for everyone: If you had [insert ESP power] and could make it work reliably enough to charge money for doing it in public or for others' benefit, would you rather be a practitioner of [insert ESP power] or a practitioner of [insert ESP power] with an extra million dollars in your pocket? For doing nothing extra? And getting the chance to poke the hated skeptic in the eye in public?

            I know what my answer is to that.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re:Please, we who know anything about dowsing

            Why some seems more sensitive than others(I'm barely over 50% hit rate)

            And you do you determine the hit rate? Dig holes everywhere you go, after the fact?

            Is that independent of the "miss" rate? Is it basically a boolean choice (there is something here, or not)?

            Would flipping a coin be faster?

            .... if your clothing matters or anything is not something being researched.

            If it really works, then yes, your clothing matters. Wearing chainmail WILL affect the results

    8. Chichicaste
      Megaphone

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      Well, for a very simple reason, criminals are not experts in this matters and most of them will crack or tremble when a cop or interviewer will ask them to take this kind of test, is not because the test is a reliable one but its a PSYCHOLOGICAL burden for a criminal even when they are not admitted in legal courts but still gets any lowlife a run for his money, also remember that cops can lye and act like the "machine is telling them that he or she is lying" so they can put pressure on anyone that does not understand and honesty majority of people are always scared of the sole mention of taking a poly.

    9. JoJ

      Re: Polygraph Examiner

      Isn't that originally The Golden Gate Evening News and Bay Advertiser Polygraph Examiner, once the foremost journal of record of the west coast?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whoosh...

    The sound of the obvious visual joke flying straight over the authors head.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Whoosh...

      I think your sarcasm detector needs re-calibrating.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Whoosh...

        I hear left handed screwdrivers are perfect for doing that.

        1. Kane
          Boffin

          Re: Whoosh...

          "I hear left handed screwdrivers are perfect for doing that."

          Add in a tin of elbow grease, should be right-as-rain!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Whoosh...

            You would need to hang it on a sky hook while doing it.

            1. Korev Silver badge
              Coat

              Re: Whoosh...

              Always useful for when you're painting with stripy paint

            2. Japhy Ryder

              Re: Whoosh...

              Skyhooks are real: skyhook

              1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

                Re: Whoosh...

                Of course they are.

          2. 2Nick3

            Re: Whoosh...

            "Add in a tin of elbow grease, should be right-as-rain!"

            And a can of Beep for the horn, too.

          3. kain preacher

            Re: Whoosh...

            "Add in a tin of elbow grease, should be right-as-rain!"

            Every one knows elbow grease is really vasoline

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Whoosh...

        Gonna need some ice for that burn.

        Anyone here got the recipe for ice?

        1. 's water music

          Re: Whoosh...

          Anyone here got the recipe for ice?

          It's here somewhere. Would you mind nipping down to the stock room for me to ask them for a long stand and I'll see if I can dig out that recipe for you

        2. JimboSmith Silver badge

          Re: Whoosh...

          Reminds me of the Simpsons episode Apu receives an ice delivery.

          Youtube link

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Whoosh...

      Sorry this is Graphic Design.

      Need a bag of half tone dots - varying sizes

      (One for the printers out there!)

  4. heyrick Silver badge

    Hmmm...

    All I get when looking at the picture is a page with a little blue bird and nothing else.

    I guess this means my rubbish blocker is working correctly. :)

    1. Stevie

      Re: Hmmm...

      No, you need to sort of cross your eyes then bring the two birds together and hey prestone! the image will form as if by magic.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I just want to know....

    ...why they seem to have such a massive variation on pay?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I just want to know....

      Different levels of MS-Paint versions and experience....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I just want to know....

      Probably for if they have extra skills such as notepad.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Coat

        Re: I just want to know....

        You get the higher salary if you can re-load the original MS Paint onto the latest Windows so that you can do transparencies again :)

  6. RyokuMas
    Paris Hilton

    Meh...

    "The Register hopes that the next time the City needs a software developer it does so with a BASIC program."

    The average BASIC programmer of yesteryear is miles ahead of some of the stack-overflow-copy-pastas I have heard calling themselves "developers" in more recent times. Especially in game development.

    1. CheesyTheClown

      Re: Meh...

      I started wit BASIC, debug.com and edlin way back when. I did demo coding in the glory days of counting clock cycles to blit in mode-x. I can implement bressigham lines and circles from memory in pretty much any language.

      Last night I was at work writing hashing code for implementing EAP for my homegrown radius server for fun until midnight.

      I am more than happy to cut and paste from stack overflow. Especially in the rare cases I have to slop some shit together in Python because I’m on a Remote Desktop to a machine which has nothing but Python and a policy against installing software.

      To be honest though, thanks to Stack Overflow, when I needed a quick and dirty fix for editing 48 Cisco configurations embedded as base64 in XML rags on 20 files, it took me 25 minutes to learn enough Python to write a short but functional program to do that. I did that last week and I hope to wait another year before writing more Python. But let’s be honest, Stack Overflow is one of the greatest programming resources EVER!

      I just wish there was a suitable replacement for Dr. Dobbs. We lost way too much when they went bust.

      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

        Re: Meh...

        There are two types of Stackoverflow users: Those who copy & paste, and those who read, think, understand, and re-write themselves.

        1. Lysenko

          Re: Meh...

          There are two types of Stackoverflow users:

          ...those who know what stack overflow is and those who think it is a website for asking programming questions. The former regard recursion and immutability as potential code smells while the latter cargo cult the same.

      2. Simon Harris
        Headmaster

        Re: Meh...

        I can implement bressigham lines and circles from memory in pretty much any language.

        Anyone with that boast should also be able to spell Bresenham from memory.

    2. Daniel von Asmuth
      Windows

      Make programming great again

      Explicitly asking for a BASIC developer is tantamount to age discrimination... Millennial CS Masters have no clue....

    3. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: stack-overflow-copy-pastas

      The goto place to find spaghetti code.

      oh... and conchiglie scripts.

  7. Chewi
    Thumb Up

    Bonus points

    …for inappropriate use of Comic Sans!!

    1. Aladdin Sane

      Re: Bonus points

      Surely any use of Comic Sans is inappropriate?

      1. Chewi

        Re: Bonus points

        Yes, that did occur to me afterwards.

      2. 's water music
        Happy

        Re: Bonus points

        Surely any use of Comic Sans is inappropriate?

        It's an appropriate way to smoke out font bores

        1. Eddy Ito
          Coat

          Re: Bonus points

          Exactly! It's clear that such an ad calls for Comic Serif

    2. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Bonus points

      I've heard Comic Sans was originally designed to be easier for dyslexics to read. It doesn't make a difference for me, but maybe it'll help someone else.

      1. 's water music

        Re: Bonus points

        AIUI the major reason it is preferred by educators for dyslexics is that the lower case 'a' glyph is styled as it is typically written. Combine that with free availability going back to the times when there weren't many free fonts and you build an unstoppable momentum among primary age educators.

  8. JimmyPage Silver badge
    WTF?

    That's a hell of a salary range !!!!!!

    For the same job ???????

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That's a hell of a salary range !!!!!!

      I do wonder if that $40k-$100k means: $40k, or maybe $45k if you're a skilled negotiator.

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: That's a hell of a salary range !!!!!!

        $40-45k unless you're related to (or owed by) the Mayor?

  9. adam payne

    Do you require experience in Paint for Paint3D?

  10. returnmyjedi

    Guybrush

    Why is it us Deluxe Paint experts are never shown any love? We can do animated colour cycling y'know!

  11. Lord_Beavis
    Trollface

    100K/yr in Cali?

    Isn't that poverty level pay?

  12. viscount

    Courtesy of a graphic design colleague:

    Q: 'How many graphic designers does it take to change a lightbulb?'

    A: Graphic designer: 'None! I'm not changing a f****ing thing'

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    "...one of the City’s other designers liked the gig so much she stayed 28 years!"

    And I bet she's not on $100k.

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