I know a good writer is supposed to take whatever assignment s/he can grab, build on that, use it as a challenge to grow from, &c.  I know a good writer can grab the ball and run with it and shouldn't be too proud to undertake a job.

Gods know I haven't had any assignments lately.  I'm looking for work through various channels and am excited about some of the opportunities, but at the risk of sounding princessy, there is one job I will never accept.

Marketing.  I see a lot of writing positions in the realm of marketing, and as much as I need the experience and would like the money, I can't bring myself to work in marketing.  I see it as a force of evil.  It uses increasingly manipulative messaging and semiotics to exploit an undereducated population while exploring how closely it can skirt technical legal offense.

I see these jobs that start to sound okay, like a blogger wanted for a company-wide intranet blog, but then they mention planning e-mail and mobile phone campaigns.  I'm against spamming (however they want to call it) and I'm particularly defensive against marketing through text messaging.  Marketing sees no boundary, no inviolate personal realm, no inappropriate breach.  There is nowhere you can suggest that Marketing will say, "That's going too far."  All they want to do is sell you stuff that you don't need and, once you've bought it, sell you more of it.

I don't want to use my powers for evil.  It would be a personal failure for me to design an unsuccessful Yo-J or Sunny D campaign, but it would be a larger moral failure for me to write a successful one.  I don't want a legacy in the form of unsolicited and invasive text messages on millions of cell phones, and I don't want all the anger generated from that directed at me.

At the same time... I need a job.