Stupid Graph Tricks

My pal Esther, who I hope hires me again someday soon, tweeted about Indeed.com, a site that tracks job listings over multiple sites and allows you to graph trends in relative and absolute terms. (She was lamenting the rise of squooshy terms like "social media" over terms like "editor" and "writer"--though anyone who's been involved with "social media" knows there is a desperate paucity of writers and editors out there.)

So, I did my own research--and after determining that nobody anywhere ever needs the skills I have--I went further afield, as encapsulated in the graph below:

As you can see, job opportunities for "sex", "drugs" and "rock and roll" have been on the rise over the past four years. What's fascinating--and by fascinating, I mean utterly meaningless--is how despite the way drug demands rise and fall, and sex demands spike then plateau, and rock and roll rises steadily, they all pretty much go up at the same speed.

So, I guess this means putting "sex, drugs and rock and roll" could only improve your job prospects.

Or maybe I'm not the sort of person who should be using these tools.