This job sounds even more vulnerable to layoff than ‘editorial page editor’

Hey, I’ve been known to yell “stop the presses” a few times. Well, not yell, really. More like run down to the press room or call the foreman on the phone and say it in an urgent tone.

But I’ve given the order a few times, back in my newsroom days, before I moved to the more sedate world of editorial.

However, it never occurred to me that there might be a guy whose whole job was just stopping the presses. Which appears to be the case with this job posting I saw today:

Press Brake Operator needed in Columbia, SC

Working Hours: Monday-Friday 6:30am-4:00pm
Location: NE Columbia, SC
Pay: $10.00 / DOE

1-2 years experience in Punch Press, Lasers, and/ or Turret Punch.

Looking for hard working employees with reliable transportation.
Steel toed boots required
Drug testing required
Background screening required

NEED ASAP!!!!!!

Hey, that last line was uttered with a certain urgency, don’t you think? Must be an editor somewhere who really, really needs those presses stopped.

But it seems to me that a job that consisted entirely of stopping the presses sounds a tad, well, specialized. Makes you wonder why someone else, with other duties, can’t just step over and put the brakes on at the appropriate moment. Seems like, if that were my whole job, just stopping the presses, I’d really be looking over my shoulder worried that the bosses might figure out that someone else could do the job cheaper.

But I’m being facetious. This job title is probably a little misleading; the person who fills the position no doubt has other stuff to do the rest of the time when he or she isn’t stopping the presses. I was never in charge of the production division, so the intricacies of titles in that department may be going over my head.

But I just got a smile out of it, reminiscing…

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