Friday, May 04, 2007

That's What They Get

I've actually been meaning to post this for a while, but keep forgetting. Those of you who know me, know that I applied for a job with the Brewers last fall. The position was for a Media Relations Coordinator. This was a large part of my last job, so I could have done it in my sleep, and would have gladly taken a pay cut to do it. But the Brewers wanted someone with "major league baseball experience." I later found out they already knew who was going to get the job, and they posted the opening only because they had to.

The person they hired, from what I understand, was straight out of college, and his major league baseball experience was an internship with the Brewers the year before. But I digress.

Part of the job was to help put together the annual media guide. I sat down with mine the day I got it and started reading immediately. It took me about 10 minutes to find the first error. On page 397, the final line of Davey Nelson's bio reads as follows, He currently splits time between Bradenton, Florida and

That's it. Then a space and then starts the bio for Hector Molina. Nice editing there!

Another facet of the job was to work on the programs available at every game. I picked up one a couple of weeks ago and was flipping through it on my way out of the stadium. On the back page, where it profiles tips from the pros, the headline reads something like this, "Everyone knows that shortstops are the infield general's." Nice punctuation.

This is coming from someone responsible for media output?? I'm glad that MLB experience is paying off, because the college education apparently isn't. Never mind the fact that I wrote countless press releases in my last job, or that I worked on the media output for a huge golf tournament a few years ago, or that nothing went out of our office before I proofed it, but like I said, that's what they get for not hiring me!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if it makes you feel any better, you're not alone.

I've applied for a position in the past with the Brewers, thinking I actually had a shot, based on my work experience.

Similar to your experience, it was filled with 'a favored son'.

I sense things were even more 'fixed' during the Selig era.

Tamra Reynolds said...

I'm glad to see I'm not alone. It sucks that they even post these openings when they're not really "openings" to begin with. Oh, and the MLB experience requirement was NOT listed anywhere in the posting. But I guess that's how they justify hiring a 22 year old kid straight out of college versus someone with actual real world experience. It's great that they promote from within, but not so much when they are ignoring better qualified applicants.