62 Business The EconomistJuly 13th 2019
2Bartleby Superheroes need not apply
Economist.com/blogs/bartlebyT
here is anold Army joke about a
sergeant-major who asks his platoon
whether any of them are interested in
music. When four hands go up, the ser-
geant says “Right, lads. You can carry this
grand piano down to the officers’ mess.”
Job recruitment has become more
sophisticated since that story first did
the rounds. Today’s careers require a lot
more than just raw muscle but that
sometimes makes jobs hard to define.
The unfortunate result is a form of “ad-
jective inflation” in recruitment ads as
employers attempt to make routine tasks
sound exciting.
Candidates must sometimes wonder
whether they are applying for a 9-to-5
role or to become part of the Marvel
“Avengers” franchise. On Indeed, a re-
cruitment website, a cocktail bar was
recently looking for “bartenders who are
people-focused, quality-driven, (and)
have superhero hospitality powers”. The
ability to give customers the correct
change was not mentioned.
Another British company advertised
for “a call-centre Ninja, a superhero in
people”, a job description which sounds a
little over-the-top for what was in fact a
role at an insurance broker in Isleworth.
In case you think that advertisement was
an aberration, Indeed also featured jobs
for “a black-belt prioritisation ninja”, and
another demanding a “ninja-like atten-
tion to detail”. Short of turning up for the
interview dressed head-to-toe in black,
and then sneaking up behind the manag-
ing director at his desk, it is hard to see
how candidates could demonstrate their
ninja-ness.
Not all companies require candidates
to possess the qualities of a Japanese
warrior, of course. Some, in an echo of
the 1960s slogan, “make love, not war”,
require applicants to be passionate. TheBluewater shopping mall in south-east
England was looking for “passionate sales-
driven brand ambassadors” while “pas-
sionate crew members” were needed at a
pretzel-bakery in west London for a wage
of just £8.23 ($10.32) an hour.
Bartleby feels passionate about his
wife, the fortunes of England’s sports
teams and the alarming notion that Boris
Johnson might become his country’s
prime minister. But when it comes to
work, passion may not always be the most
appropriate emotion. Would patients
prefer a “passionate” surgeon or one re-
nowned for keeping a cool head? As emo-
tions go, pride in one’s performance seems
important, as does a degree of empathy for
colleagues and other people (customers,
patients, readers) affected by what you do.
In any case, passion is pretty hard to main-
tain consistently for 40 hours a week,
month after month.
In certain jobs, particularly in the
caring professions, people’s devout belief
in the social usefulness of their role per-
suades them to put up with long hours and
low pay. But selling pretzels or shoes is notone of them. Instead of talking about
passion, employers should rather be
asking for enthusiasm. Workers may
not learn to love their jobs, but with the
right attitude, they can get enjoyment
from the simple act of performing their
task well. As well as keeping employees
content, this ought to be enough for
most bosses.
Alas, another newish management
mantra is “bring your whole self to work”.
This slogan, dreamed up by Mike Rob-
bins, a motivational speaker, seems well
intentioned. Workers should not have to
suppress their personalities. They
should not hide the fact that they are gay,
for example, or caring for children or
elderly relatives at home.
But it is easy to see how the slogan can
be turned into the idea that workers
should give 100% commitment all the
time. That is asking too much. It is great
when people enjoy their work but the
fact is a lot of people are doing their jobs
to pay the bills, and dreaming of the few
weeks in the year when they can take a
holiday. They may have hobbies and
interests outside work, but the word
“outside” is key. Those are the moments
when the company has no claim on its
employees. Workers should be allowed
to leave parts of themselves at home.
Job applicants should take their cue
from the kind of advertisements that
companies place. Think of it as a first
date. If the other person started talking of
marriage and how many children you
will have together, you might avoid
seeing them a second time. So if a job
advert talks about passion or super-
heroes, run away faster than a speeding
Batmobile. Being a ninja should be re-
served for teenage mutant turtles.The extravagant language used by job advertspaigning as his running mate).
In some ways the region’s brightest spot
has been Colombia. Álvaro Uribe, presi-
dent from 2002 to 2010, set about restruc-
turing Ecopetrol. His changes included the
creation of an independent regulator and
the listing of 11% of Ecopetrol shares, which
provided an infusion of capital that helped
the company enlist better managers. In
2015 it recruited Felipe Bayón Pardo, a for-
mer senior executive at bp, a British oil
giant, who became boss in 2017. After the
downturn in oil prices at the end of 2014,
Ecopetrol slashed spending. When pricesticked up, spending rose, though more
slowly than in Mexico. But Ecopetrol’s re-
serves are dwindling. To boost them, it is
teaming up with international oil majors
and investing $500m in fracking.
Success is not assured, in Colombia or
elsewhere. The International Energy Agen-
cy, an intergovernmental forecaster, pre-
dicted that Brazilian output would boom
last year—yet output dipped as new oil-
fields were slow to begin production and
mature ones fell.
Those concerned about climate change
might argue that the region’s inefficientstate-run firms would do well to return
more money to shareholders and invest
the rest in cleaner energy. Rivals in other
parts of the world are taking tentative steps
in that direction. Statoil, Norway’s titan,
has reinvented itself as Equinor; its portfo-
lio comprises both oil projects and wind
farms. Even the world’s oil colossus, Saudi
Aramco, is making a bet on petrochemicals
and refining, demand for which should re-
main robust even if a global carbon price
one day depressed that for crude. Latin
American oilmen are too consumed by old
challenges to deal with these new ones. 7