Too poor to work
Weird, right?
With not a whole lot of success on the job front thus far in Seattle, I decided to respond to an ad on Craigslist this morning wanting participants for a focus group. The posting was essentially looking for local consumers to take part in a marketing, apparently for coffee companies. It requires 2 1/2 hours of your time for just one morning, during which you sample different coffees and give your feedback on them. The pay is $80 cash per person.
Sweet, right?
$80 for a morning of drinking free coffee and talking about it. Bring Jessica along and that's $160. Let's go with this.
I called the agency, located just a few minutes from our place, and spoke with a nice, middle-aged man. He explained that he just needed to ask me a few questions first to make sure I was eligible to participate in the survey. After lying about not having any friends or family in the marketing industry (my new brother-in-law is in the marketing department at Microsoft), he gave a few words of approval and said he had just one more question.
Easy, right?
"What's your average yearly income, sir?" Crap. Uhh, none, that's why I want to participate in your survey. Having no current income, I threw out an arbitrary figure: "$35,000."
Should be safe, right?
"Hmmm, that's going to be a problem," the guy said. "We're looking for participants in a higher income bracket." End of conversation.
I should have known better than to respond to an ad that says "Coffee Drinkers Needed" in Seattle.
With not a whole lot of success on the job front thus far in Seattle, I decided to respond to an ad on Craigslist this morning wanting participants for a focus group. The posting was essentially looking for local consumers to take part in a marketing, apparently for coffee companies. It requires 2 1/2 hours of your time for just one morning, during which you sample different coffees and give your feedback on them. The pay is $80 cash per person.
Sweet, right?
$80 for a morning of drinking free coffee and talking about it. Bring Jessica along and that's $160. Let's go with this.
I called the agency, located just a few minutes from our place, and spoke with a nice, middle-aged man. He explained that he just needed to ask me a few questions first to make sure I was eligible to participate in the survey. After lying about not having any friends or family in the marketing industry (my new brother-in-law is in the marketing department at Microsoft), he gave a few words of approval and said he had just one more question.
Easy, right?
"What's your average yearly income, sir?" Crap. Uhh, none, that's why I want to participate in your survey. Having no current income, I threw out an arbitrary figure: "$35,000."
Should be safe, right?
"Hmmm, that's going to be a problem," the guy said. "We're looking for participants in a higher income bracket." End of conversation.
I should have known better than to respond to an ad that says "Coffee Drinkers Needed" in Seattle.
posted by Aaron at 6:57 PM
3 comments
