Here’s a thing that happened recently:

My professional life is divided into two segments – I work three days a week for a law firm in Austin running their blog, working on case summaries, and occasional other writing projects. I also have a freelance writing career that, while only about nine months old, has been lucky enough to proceed steadily in that time, with work in both local and national, print and online publications and almost never having to write about anything I think is boring. I can write about Austin theater, interview my favorite musicians, get paid to offer up my thoughts on football(!), turn my obsession with reading pretty much every ad on Craigslist into a weekly gig, or just make fun of things, and I somehow have a platform. Especially given that I’m still in my rookie year as a professional freelance writer, I’ve been incredibly fortunate.

But the money can be kind of tight. That’s especially true when your wife is focused intently on starting a non-profit and needs time off for things like pilot programs and building a network of future fundraisers. And during a recession, when everyone’s telling you that the industry is dying – yeah.

So when I saw a Craigslist ad a couple weeks ago for a locally-based sneaker culture website that sought a writer for a steady paycheck, I figured I might as well apply. The site’s owned by Complex, which is a kind of icky street-culture-for-white-kids men’s magazine, so it seemed like a decent career move, and I figured I could just work myself to death for a while at two jobs, let some of my freelance work take a backseat if necessary, and learn a whole bunch about shoes. I sent them a cover letter as requested, explaining my background with sneakers, street culture, and writing. It included some of the following statements:

• I’m still learning
• I’m not trying to be an expert
• I’m a journalist, not a skater or a basketball player
• There are dudes out there who know more about sneakers than I do

The application featured a photograph of a shoe, stripped of context, and asked for a writing sample about the piece of ridiculous footwear. I did about ten minutes worth of research, identified it as the Nike OriginalFake AirMax 90, and wrote a 150 word blog-style entry in the tone of the site about it.

This was enough to qualify me for an interview. We worked out the details, and one Wednesday morning, I made the drive out to Lakeway, Texas, a suburb about 40 minutes outside of Austin, to a drab office park out of which the sneaker website was based. I met Angela Hemphill, the woman with whom I’d been corresponding in regard to the interview, and she introduced me to the person with whom I’d be speaking, whose last name was also Hemphill.

I sat down, and he stood up. He asked his first question.

“So, the most important thing I need to know is how long have you been into sneakers?”

I kind of hemmed and hawed, since I had answered that question in the “preinterview” form I’d been sent with a resounding, “Not very long”. I think I said something like, “Uh, not very long.” He frowned.

“Well, for this job, we really want someone who’s been into sneakers for at least nine years.” This caught my ear, because – fuck, nine years? Eight’s not enough, apparently, but ten would just be gratuitous. He went on. “I worked in a shoe store for nine years before I started with the site.” Which explained why ten years wasn’t necessary – he’d be unqualified for his own job, apparently. “The most important thing is that we get someone who’s really into sneakers. Most of our writers are even more obsessed with sneakers than I am. We call ourselves Sneaker-Heads, because we love them that much.”

I tried to stammer something about didn’t you or your wife or sister or whoever that person sitting over there who has the same last name that you do actually read my fucking cover letter, but I was cut off.

“Look at that table over there,” he instructed, gesturing to a table to my left that was covered in various sneakers. “How many of those can you tell me the designer of?”

I blinked. “None of them!” I blurted. He shook his head.

“Yeah, I don’t think this is gonna work out.” I started to get up, but he motioned to stay seated, apparently determined to waste a little bit more of my time. “What other subcultures are you into?”

I named a few – comics, hip-hop, that I had friends who were really into limited-run toys, street art… He nodded.

“Do you know KAWS?” I said that I did. “What about [some other street artist]?” I said no. He then proceeded to rattle off name after name. “What about [jackass street artist who designs shoes]? What about [other dumb artist who I’ve decided without seeing his work probably sucks]?” I said no to each of them, until the last one, when I said, “Yeah, I know him,” just to change things up a little, because it’s actually less rewarding than you might think to have some asshole who called you in for a job interview for no fucking reason try to embarrass you for not knowing as much about a subculture that you told him you didn’t know that much about as he does.

I was done at that point, but he decided we should end the interview on a high note. “Well, I don’t know. We really want someone who’s obsessed with sneakers,” he said, “But we might decide to go another direction.” I laughed in his face and told him to save it.

I have no idea why on earth I was called for an interview. In fact, I emailed Ms. Hemphill afterward to ask what part of my cover letter made me sound like a good fit for a job in which the first interview question asked would be, “How long have you been into sneakers,” and any answer with a number lower than nine would be met with a scowl of disapproval. I asked a lot of questions in that email. There was no response.

But the thing that drove me fucking crazy about it is that these people seem to actually believe that it’s easier to get some dude from the shoe store and teach him how to write than it is to take a professional writer and let him read a few press releases about shoes to learn the form and the industry. I mean, I’m not saying that I’m the most versatile writer to ever walk the earth, but I’ve learned enough about improvised performance art to cover that, Austin civil engineering history to write about that, and local mayoral politics to do pieces about that. Did these people really think that it took nine years of shoe-worship to turn out scintillating 150-word blog entries with content like:

The Nike Air Max Lebron VII is receiving crazy coverage and rightfully so if you witness Nike’s marketing tactics such as the LeBron VII Artist Series. Thanks to the omnipresent eyes at Daily Drop, we have notice that the LeBron VII is now available, pre-release, in its White/Black/Red colorway. Of course there is an above retail surcharge but that’s the price to pay if you care to be flyer than the rest of them.

And it’s cool. I didn’t really want to write about shoes, and I’m sure that in three months, when they lay off the dude that they eventually hired because who the fuck can afford to pay a salary to a guy who writes about shoes for some website all day, I’ll be especially glad it didn’t work out. And they’re welcome to hire based on any criteria they like, so the fact that they wanted a shoes guy is cool, I guess. But what the fuck, dudes? Why call me when your main goal is to get  guy who self-applies a label like Sneaker-Head to himself to hang out in your office with you?