“Teamwork” and “flexibility” are the usual words when employers try to convey expectations in a fluffy way. “Particularly good sleep skills,” on the other hand, was probably never in an ad – until recently. “Get paid to sleep” was the slogan of the accompanying ad and the idea was that people would sleep in Casper’s stores for money.
Now that raises some questions. “Particularly good sleeping skills” is in no way inferior to conventional job advertisements when it comes to spongyness. Can this quality be attributed to parents who can fall asleep again five times a night after changing diapers, carrying them around, preparing milk? Or the babies that come with them, who are still sitting at the table eating or sleeping on their stomachs kneeling in bed with their buttocks up? Or are older people good sleepers because they could write “many years of practical experience” in the application?
How undefined the term is can be seen in the comments on the ad. “I would be perfect because I have a sleep disorder and excessive daytime sleepiness,” said one user, “I was born asleep, I live asleep and my dream is to make money while I sleep,” another. The fact that opinions differ is logical: sleep is an emotional topic, especially in connection with consumption. Box springs or futons, a duvet or two, a mattress or two, pillows or not, marriages have at least crumbled by that.
The background to the ad is likely to be simple: the idea with which the company became famous in 2014, ordering a mattress online and doing everything you can think of at home for 100 days without having to keep it, is not not correct. How you feel about a mattress changes with body heat, the slatted frame is crucial, and keeping your clothes, including your belt and shoes, on when trying them out in a furniture store disturbs comfort. But you can now try sleeping at home on the mattresses of many manufacturers. And even where this guarantee does not apply, a judgment of the Supreme Court two weeks to decide against the mattress.
Noisy Washington Post The campaign came about because the founders of Casper underestimated how important it is for people to try out different mattresses – and are now opening many stores in the USA. The company has used the widespread childhood dream of sleeping in real stores. Ikea once even invited people to stay overnight in a branch in Sydney in cooperation with a rental platform; six years ago, two Belgians started the trend of illegally staying overnight in branches of the furniture store after they posted a video of their night had. And the reporting was almost jealous last winter when 31 people locked up because of a snowstorm had to sleep in an Ikea in Denmark. The same longings presumably mean that a toy shop in Hanover offers men’s nights out on its premises.
The real question in the ad is what it means to have to stay overnight “in unexpected places in the world”. But in this respect, it’s a completely normal job that can only be planned to a limited extent – even if a standard advertisement would probably say: “high willingness to travel”.