I did this exercise myself once – wrote out my own hellish job description, everything that would make a role an actual nightmare for me specifically. And then I burned it. Actual paper, actual fire, no idea where the ashes ended up. Turns out sitting with that much red flag energy on a page needs an exit ritual, not a save button.
This is one of the things I have people do during Engineer, the fifth stage of FRAMES. Not a vision board of the dream job – the opposite. Write the worst one. Every phrase, every vague promise, every red flag you’ve learned to spot the hard way. It’s a much faster route to your actual criteria than trying to imagine your ideal role from scratch, because most of us are far better at knowing what we hate than articulating what we want.
What’s actually in a hellish job description
Once you start collecting the phrases, patterns show up fast.
The buzzwords with nothing behind them: synergy, rockstar, ninja, ownership of “disruptive technology” that never gets defined. “Flexible,” “agile,” “dynamic” – nearly always means chaotic, not adaptable. “Fast-paced” and “high-pressure” are doing the same job: telling you it’s toxic without having to say toxic.
Then there’s the workload tells. A list of responsibilities a mile long. “Regular updates” that usually means either micromanagement or back-to-back meetings with no actual working time left in the day. “Wear many hats” and “move fast and break things,” which sound energetic until you’re the one holding six roles’ worth of accountability and none of the authority.
“Self starter who thrives in ambiguity” is one of the worst ones, because it sounds like a compliment. What it actually means: you’ll never have ownership boundaries, escalation paths, clear feedback, or development opportunities. You’ll just be expected to know. “Full ownership” often means the same thing from the other direction. And “hackathon culture” – no systems, and no plan to get any.
If that landed – if you just recognised yourself in what you just read – I have room for a small number of 1:1 clients before the end of the year. 4 spots left. Book a discovery call and let’s talk about whether it’s the right next step for you.
Then the money tells: asking for far more experience than the salary band could possibly justify. No mention of salary or benefits at all, which is common enough not to be automatically damning, but when a job ad won’t tell you the number and also won’t tell you what’s actually in the benefits package – “comparable benefits package,” full stop, nothing comparable named – that’s not an oversight.
What you do with it
The list isn’t the point. What you do with it is.
Once you’ve written your own hellish job description, you’ve got a filter, not a feeling. Next time you’re looking at a real posting, you’re not asking “does this seem okay?” You’re checking it against a list you already know is true for you. That’s Engineer – the strategy isn’t a plan for the future in the abstract, it’s a set of criteria specific enough that you can actually use it on the next thing in front of you.
It’s the same instinct as Foundation, just aimed forward instead of inward. Foundation asks what a career has to support. Engineer asks: given that, what would I never accept again.
I can only take on 4 Mastery clients this year, and 4 spots are still open. If this post described where you are, don’t sit on it. Book a discovery call and we’ll figure out together whether FRAMES is right for you.
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