A great injustice is taking place as you read this.
Sam Marshall – the man who single-handedly turned Haught from an amusing, enlightening, superbly-written but mostly unknown blog into the world’s most trusted source of news, opinion, erotica, relationship and career advice, digital literature, sporting commentary, public transport policy discussion and Grape Men updates – is without work.
Now before I ask what in the name of fuckery is wrong with the world, I want to make sure everyone reading this is clear about who Sam Marshall is. And the best way of doing this is by taking you back to something you’ve almost certainly already read. (In fact, if the stats WordPress give me are anything to go by, on average each of you will have read the following thirty-seven times.) Anyway, here it is again:
THE RESPONSE: My email to Yarra Trams
Yes, Sam Marshall, the virtuoso behind this, one of the greatest pieces of customer service in the history of mankind, is currently “between jobs”.
WHAT? Are you serious, Australian employers?
So, let me get this right…
… a friend of mine works with a woman (let’s call her Bertha Bernt-Wanke) who spends her entire day at work making a low humming sound, eating Savory Shapes and nothing else. Bertha currently gets $75,000 a year while Sam Marshall – versatile, experienced, possessing an IQ of above 140 – can’t find a job.
… a man who I take the tram to work with every morning (let’s call him Pat Raw) is infatuated with his own excrement, freely admits he spends much of his work day writing vampire fiction and talks about his employer’s intellectual property as if it’s a generic cake recipe. Pat earns $125,000 a year (he tells us three times per week) while Sam Marshall – amiable, intelligent, professional – still looks for work.
… eminent cockbean Kyle Sandilands, former Gobbledok Alan Jones and Channel Nine’s entire upper management all earn millions a year while Sam… oh, and I just blasted my keyboard with my own incredulity-provoked vomit.
So I’ll ask again: “Are you serious?”
He is a charming fellow and a wonderful raconteur (I’m not making this up). He exhibits excellent penmanship (I made that up), is warm, humorous, honest and tactful (he admitted to me at our first meeting that he expected I would be a wanker and then said I wasn’t, even though I clearly am). He is seeking work as a team leader in the Customer Service/Feedback area and also has a keen interest in IT. His email address is samgmarshall@gmail.com
AND HE’S LITERALLY A GENIUS! I CANNOT EMPHASISE THIS STRONGLY ENOUGH! YOU WILL BE EMPLOYING SOMEONE WHO COULD WALK INTO MENSA AND SAY “I’LL TAKE IT FROM HERE” IF HE WAS SO INCLINED!
Anyway, time for me to put my pipe down and my brandy aside, because that’s the end of my measured, compelling and scrupulously fair prologue.
Time for the important part: what I’m going to do about this grossly iniquitous state of affairs.
Well, I certainly won’t stand idly by as this genius of a man’s talent is flagrantly ignored. Indeed, I have devised an elaborate plan. I’ve decided to call it the Marshall Plan because it has a brilliant double meaning and I like to show off my knowledge of post-war history wherever possible.
Here’s how it goes. You, my trusted readers, pass this post on to every potential employer you know. They read, they laugh, they weep, they laugh again (because they’ve got to the Alan Jones bit), and then they resolve, internally, to give this veritable customer service leviathan the opportunity he so obviously deserves.
Sounds good, eh? And it’s not as if you haven’t done the whole viral thing with Sam before.
OK.
Ready?
Set.
Go…
Sam’s email:
Good luck. I think that you are setting your sights way too low though. Daily column in some of the Melbourne, and national papers, should be your goal.