Design Apprentice to Eccentric Millionaire @ Fun Ecom Co.

- Are a freak who can’t stand when things aren’t perfect?

- Do you accept Wingdings as the objectively best font?

- Do you thrive in a high-stress environment filled with political infighting, bureaucracy, and corporate nonsense?

If so, then we are the place for you, except you might hate how nice of a company we have - filled with happy, generally competent people that don’t put up with jerks. Frankly, it makes me sick how nice everyone is.

We are remote full time, have very flexible hours, people are judged by their output, not by how much they suck up to the boss, and turnover is super low because the company believes that happy employees = happy customers = happy bank account. Simply disgusting, if you ask me.

--Is this a real job ad?--

Yup! Amazingly enough, we actually paid money to post this on a bunch of different job sites. And it’s not even a pyramid scheme! Plus, get this: the owner just started paying our 70ish employees with money instead of Pizza Hut coupons - we’re big time, people.

Our careers page is actually worth checking out to learn more about how insane we are (sidenote: it won a web design award in 1993 - we’re a pretty big deal):

http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/

And check out our reviews on Google, Glassdoor, or Indeed to see that it’s not just the founder’s mother who says we’re cool.

--What do you guys do?--

We do a lot of different things these days including selling awesome consumer products (these are just a small sampling):

- Bad Parking Cards (https://amz.run/5Eya)

- Beverage Barricades (https://amz.run/6kip)

- Child Chucker (https://amz.run/9EUz)

Running this Amazon Pay-Per-Click agency: PPCFarm.com (we’re really, really good at PPC)

And we will soon be launching a SaaS product for inventory management.

We are doing our best to grow rapidly every year, and it’s our intention to continue that for as long as possible, which means we need good people to help us keep up with the growth.

--What is your company like?--

1. You Can Be Yourself. You don’t have to put on a fake, professional face. You can just be yourself. You can talk smack to the CEO (highly encouraged), and no one will think anything of it. You don't have to dress up, or use formal language, or pretend to be something you're not - you can just be you.

2. Major Opportunities for Career Growth. We are not trying to just be a small business. We plan to be doing $100 million annually in the next few years. We promote quickly once we identify talent. It doesn’t matter what your credentials are – it matters what you get done.

3. Full Time Remote/Flexible Hours. You will be working from home in your pajamas, on your schedule. And we don’t care if you work 10 hour days 4 days a week or 6 hours a day and catch up over the weekend. So long as you get a lot of work done, we’re happy campers.

4. Complete Work/Life Balance. If you’re routinely working more than 45ish hours, you’re gonna get a friendly talking-to. We want you to be operating at 100% capacity, which means that you need to rest.

5. Strongly Anti-BS. Anybody in the company can (and is expected to) tell the CEO when he is wrong. There are no bureaucratic or BS rules getting in the way of getting work done.

6. No Micro-Management. Once you’re trained and have demonstrated you know your stuff, we are pretty hands-off. In fact, if you need external management to stay on-task and motivated, we probably aren’t the place for you.

7. No Toxic/Incompetent People Allowed. We try very hard to screen out mean or stupid people before they get in, but in case they slip through, we fire them quickly. You will never have to interact with someone who is an obvious idiot or straight up malicious. No toxic or incompetent people at work - could it really be? [Yes]

8. Supportive Environment. We don’t operate via intense stress or unreasonable top-down deadlines. Everyone wants you to be successful – internal politics are at a minimum here.

9. Lots of Raises. We do our absolute best to get ahead of things and give raises preemptively, so you don't have to ask for one. It's not unusual at all for someone to receive 2+ raises per year.

10. We’ll Invest in Your Training. We want you and everyone to get better constantly. You’ll be learning new things all the time, and are strongly encouraged to invest time every day to learn new things, improve your system/work process, and just generally try to make your life easier.

11. 4-6+ Weeks Vacation. We 100% want you to recharge, so having plenty of time off is absolutely worth it.

12. Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave. We’ve even started letting people skip meetings during labor!

13. Self-Funded So We Can Do What’s Right for Us. We don’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves, so we can make the right decision for the long-term health of the company vs trying to get big too fast or cut corners to appease some selfish investor.

--What are your company’s values?--

See here: http://www.jlstradingco.com/careers/

Yes, those are legitimately our values. The careers page is definitely worth checking out - it’s not just normal corporate BS. We promise you’ll learn a lot about us.

--OK, so I’ve read like 8 dang pages about you guys. Will you tell me what the actual job is?--

No.

--Wait... What?--

OK fine. Super short version:

Learning how to be a great designer from the ground up. We’re gonna teach you everything you need to know, and don’t care at all what your previous background is.

Here is a bulleted list of responsibilities:

- Go through our apprenticeship training program

- Discover how we think about design from First Principles

- Learn the tools of the trade

- Practice, get feedback, iterate and repeat endlessly until you are an amazing designer (it takes LOTS of reps to get good at this stuff)

--Do I need experience?--

We expect you to have a minimum of 70 years of experience (120+ preferred).

Oh, you haven't lived two lifetimes eating and breathing business 24/7/365? Who TF do you think you are, reading this job description? You absolute buffoon.

Oh, you haven't been directly involved in at least two (preferably three) World Wars? You're not even qualified to operate our coffee machine, you sentient potato.

Oh, you didn't observe the Big Bang as it happened? Get out of here, you pirated copy of Windows 95.

I might throw up from your arrogance. The hubris to think that you, an absolute fool, could apply for an entry-level position... sickening. I’m literally shaking right now.

Also, no you don't need any experience.

We want special people, and don’t give AF what their background is. Most of our best people did nothing remotely related to their current roles, so if you've never done anything like this before, don't sweat it. We hire 100x more for potential than existing knowledge.

The Big Bang requirement still stands though.

--Do I need a college degree?--

You just need to be awesome.

--Are there any geographic restrictions?--

As long as you are in a country that doesn’t have active sanctions from the US government, we are interested. Our founder isn’t known for respecting the government much, but they have all the guns, so…

--What is this apprentice program you speak of?--

More info here: Apprenticeship Program. This program is specifically for designers, but the general apprentice program is quite relevant and basically the same (though with different content).

--I’ve never designed before--

Great! If you are smart and motivated and capable of self-learning, then we can likely teach you whatever you need to know. We don’t care if you have never designed before - we care about your potential.

--I’ve been a designer for a long time--

Great! Though we have to warn you that we will likely want to still build your knowledge from First Principles. We will teach you things that aren’t necessarily taught in design school (much to our chagrin), and we have certain ways of doing things that aren’t necessarily standard in the industry. We think they’re good, but they take some getting used to.

--What type of things will I be designing?--

Graphic design for sure, but also potentially: marketing material, packaging, products (industrial design), web stuff, and whatever else needs designing.

We believe that design is a master skill with principles that transcend mediums, so we’ll teach you that base, and you can likely choose to specialize as you learn more of what you do and don’t like.

--What are some more specific things that need designing?--

Amazing listing images, social media ads, Standard Operating Procedures, random product inserts, some way for the CEO to stop being a crazy person, product packaging, silly postcards to people, products, etc.

--This sounds pretty good, though I’m still skeptical that this isn’t a pyramid scheme.--

You sound just like the tax authorities!

--That doesn’t resolve any of my fears, but what do I need to do to apply?--

Please submit your information on the following page to apply. We promise to respond within 5-10 business days even if our answer is No.

There will be multiple steps in this process, FYI, including a long written application, interviews with potentially a few different people, and paid work test(s). Hiring the right people is really hard and very expensive if we do it poorly, so we have to front-load the process. I'm sorry about that and thank you for sticking with us.

Once you’re in our pipeline though, I would anticipate giving you a final answer within a few weeks, depending on how it goes. We definitely don’t want to string you along, and as long as you do what we ask, we promise to tell you “yes” or “no”, and to not just ghost you (like everybody I match with on Tinder).

Thank you for your time and interest, and I hope we can work together soon!