A sense of humor can serve you well in many situations.
A job application, however, may not be one of them.
That apparently did not deter one prospective Taco Bell employee when filling out his application -- and his application immediately prompted a debate online as to what his true motive was.
According to an application that was posted Friday to Reddit, the anonymous online forum,the candidate -- described as the brother of a girlfriend of a Reddit editor -- wrote a humorous little story in response to the standard question, "How did you find out about TACO BELL?"
In response to the standard question of "desired salary," he wrote: "Minimum wage."
The applicant's name was not shown on Reddit, nor was the position for which he was applying. But while no one in his or her right mind "desires" a federal minimum-wage salary -- $7.25 an hour, it's probably the most realistic expectation for fast food workers.
Most workers in the industry make exactly that hourly salary, which has been a sore point and has resulted in fast-food workers' strikes in five cities. Was this application a sly way of making a political point?
Commenters on Reddit divided
Reddit user emkay99 felt the applicant was being realistic, saying fast-food workers are going to be paid what "the corporation says he should be paid, and 99 times out of a hundred, that will mean minimum wage." Others suggested the application was intended as an allusion to famous anti-corporate slogans. "He's a straight shooter with upper management written all over him," Reddit user Robotizer wrote, repeating a quote from the 1999 cult film, "Office Space," which explored the soul-sucking life of the contemporary American worker.
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The applicant's response to "How did you find out about Taco Bell?" was clearly tongue-in-cheek. He wrote:
I was lost one night, and in the distance I spotted a purple bell, and I thought to myself, think outside the bun. So I ran to your doors and asked for the cheesiest gordita crunch you could make. I was not disappointed.
Happyplace.com, a viral news website which also posted the application, said the response sounded as if the author was "really, really stoned."
How did Taco Bell view the application?
The chain, which is owned by Yum Brands, Inc., would not comment on whether the applicant landed the job. But in an e-mail statement to AOL Jobs, Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch chose to overlook any intended humor in the application. "We're flattered that this customer's passion for the Cheesy Gordita Crunch led him to apply for a job," he wrote.
Other candidates have landed jobs before using gutsy, over-the-top approaches, including even taking out a billboard saying, "Hire Me." In May, 23-year-old Bennett Olson landed a position with a 3-D scanning company after he splashed his smile on a billboard in Minneapolis with that entreaty.
Just recently, on a thread on Quora, Gil Yehuda, an executive at Yahoo, claimed he was hired after turning down the web giant in a job interview, telling the recruiter, "I can't take a job if the company doesn't know what they are looking for. You need to figure out what you want before you make an offer."
According to LinkedIn, he's still employed at Yahoo.