Those who know me will know that I've currently got another harebrained idea for personal development. But I need money so I've signed up for the Civil Service's Recruitment Gateway Job Notification Service. I figured, I've got a couple of degrees from A Good Uni, a couple of years fairly responsible job experience, and growing awareness of the futility of my situation has given me a lean and hungry edge.*

Given this new me, I desperately ticked as many boxes as I could think of in every department I could even vaguely picture myself living out a Sam-Lowry-In-Brazil kind of subsistence in, then sat back and waited for the jobs offers to pour in.

For the last few weeks there has been nothing, obviously. Not a sausage, let alone some kind of vacancy. But today is different boys and girls!

Here is the gem that was suggested by the Civil Service Recruitment Gateway Job Notification Service.

Vacancy Title Oracle HRMS Business Analyst - HEO/Band D

Organisation	Department for Work and Pensions
Salary	£24410 - £29500
Location(s)	North East - Tyne View Park, Newcastle upon Tyne,
Brief Description	These roles sit within the Change and Business Development area of Shared Services that has been established to manage the challenge of an increasing number of change projects and continuous improvement initiatives underway across Shared Services and enable us to brigade all the necessary knowledge and expertise together into a single programme, helping us to respond more quickly and positively to the ever-increasing demands from our customers. It will also help us accommodate the growing demand from Other Government Departments. This team is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the DWP Resource Management solution and leading the development of the solution to meet emerging business and technical requirements.
Working Arrangement(s)	Full Time, Part Time
Closing Date	4 February 2008

OK, so where to we start? Let's start with the job title, we might as well:
"Oracle HRMS Business Analyst - HEO/Band D"
Now, I know that Oracle is some kind of fancy software for major corporates. The rest - well, HEO means Higher Executive Officer, I think - if this were in a shop, you'd be the one with 5 stars on your name tag and the words 'assistant manager' on it (retail sector shorthand for 'good boy' as in 'good boy, have those rotas on my desk by 3 will you?').

But after that inauspicious start we're into a magical mystery wonderland of fun! Look at it again: what does any of it mean? It's tempting to get a couple of grab quotes to dissect, like this one:
"this team is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the DWP Resource Management solution and leading the development of the solution to meet emerging business and technical requirements."

But frankly, what would be the point? It's all exactly as meaningless as this. That sentence makes precisely as much sense as "been established to manage the challenge of an increasing number of change projects and continuous improvement initiatives underway"

Frankly, the bit that gets me is:

Working Arrangement(s)

Full Time, Part Time

Full time, part time what? What? What? What? What? What?

WHAT WILL YOU BE

 DOING, FULL TIME OR

PART TIME? WHAT IN

CTHULHU'S NAME WILL

YOU BE DOING? TELL

ME! TELL ME!

Ahem. In other words, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World.

*This is 'lean and hungry edge' by my standards, obviously - about as threatening and inspiring as a half-melted airport-sized Toblerone. True story, I recently had a personal review meeting with my manager and I had to estimate how I lived up to our company 'values' - when it came to 'inspiring' I had to say (and he agreed, for what it's worth) that I felt that 'inspiring' implied a degree of extroversion that neither my role calls for nor a behaviour I habitually indulge in.