The point is more that she exhausted her other opportunities and The Container Store was a last resort.
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That it is a last resort is just writer's hyperbole. Why, the true last resorts are activities like driving taxicabs, or putting up drywall (or painting it).
Hmmm ... the true last resort is living on the street and dying of hunger and exposure. But it occurs to me that this is the modern version of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath". Truly desperate people will try a lot more than just applying to the container store.
Still...that's probably not something to put on a Container Store application, for exactly the reasons cited.
It was a seasonal job (ie temporary) she was overqualified for. I don't see why that should be an issue.
Because someone overqualified (worse, an overly educated and successful writer) is assumed to look down upon the McJob. Nobody wants an employee who resents what they are doing, as something that they have sunk to. Also, nobody wants an employee that will bail as soon as their publishing activity picks up. Or one whose mind is somewhere else at all times.
Honestly I disagree with that and because I've been on the other side of that I will mostly give people the benefit of the doubt. They're applying because they really need the job. Period. Unless I see something else that indicates issues I won't hold that against them.
There are very few positions I've ever had, even great jobs I loved, that I wouldn't readily leave for greener pastures. Why would I stay when another company is offering me more money and/or more responsibility for similar or more interesting work? Sure, I'm not going to drop my job at the drop of a hat, but I'll do what's best for me and that rarely involves staying for long periods of time at one company.
I've had a boss that had no choice (it was an Austrian firm that refused to pay US market rates), but to hire people grossly overqualified for the position they were in and paid way below market rate for it and he put together a great team by finding "naive and/or desperate people" (I was both at the time, having just come back from Japan when Nova, the English school, when bankrupt suddenly). And I'm still grateful to him for everything I learned there about business, but he did his best to keep everyone advancing in their career and encouraged people to move along when it was time.
Just as companies keep trying to make employees interchangeable that makes jobs just as interchangeable.
It's not about whether you'll leave for a better opportunity, it's whether you're actively looking for them.
John Smith the high school dropout is glad to just have the job, he'll stick with it as long as he can. The emmy-winning harvard graduate is going to be looking for alternatives every day she's working there, because she knows she can get hired at one. The likelihood of them leaving is much higher because they're coming to those opportunities instead of the other way around.
Sure he's glad to have a job, but unless he's a major fuck-up he's also overqualified for that job. And I'm sure if he actually needs to support himself or anyone else he's looking for his next job too. Not graduating high-school makes it hard to land even a low skill job, but not because he's any less qualified for it. It's just a lazy minimum filter to avoid people that would have absentee issues.
Working retail is simple (not easy, depending on your personality) and anyone can do it once they've been shown how to run the register.
"The likelihood of them leaving is much higher..." Do you know what the turnover is in low skill jobs?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102021496#. "After reaching 100 percent in 2005—then subsequently dropping to 51 percent following the recession in 2011—median turnover rates for part-time retail workers jumped back up to 74.9 percent in 2013, according to Hay Group, a management consulting firm."
Even call centers (considered a decent job for "unskilled" adults), have better than 25% turnover. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/standard-employee-turnover-ca...
It's not about whether you'll leave for a better opportunity, it's whether you're actively looking for them. John Smith the high school dropout is glad to just have the job, they'll stick with it as long as they can. The emmy-win
When/if you ever become a hiring manager, it'll get clear to you quite quickly.
I call bullshit. Especially because this is a temporary position, either way in a few months she would be gone. And if there's an attitude problem she could be fired.
I've had plenty of jobs that were beneath me and I hated (I even worked at Taco Bell for a season as a graduate student), I did them and did them well then left when I felt it was time to move on, no harm no foul.
And this includes computer science and programming jobs. Yes I enjoy programming and engineering and generally like my job, but all this fake enthusiasm is annoying. Most people are there for one reason to make money, either now or in the future.
Oh my...called bullshit. Knock yourself out. Objective reality doesn't match your preconceived notions. You'll find that happens a lot as you move through life.
Can you enlighten us then?
The statistical improbability of getting hired for such a position aside, if someone overqualified wanted to work for you in a (very) temporary position, why would you not hire them? Or at least get them to interview?
I don't doubt many of people feel that way and a lot of them are hiring managers, but I don't feel the need to question someone's motivations for applying to a job below their level.
Life's complicated enough without trying to overlay my preconceived notions about why they're appling for a particular job onto someone else, as you say.