A Swiss company has gone viral after advertising a vacancy for a chief happiness officer in an attempt to ensure the well-being of its employees. Lexing, a firm providing legal services in Switzerland, has advertised the role online, where its reception has been controversial.
The job description asks for the candidate to have a happy attitude, good energy and good interpersonal skills. It also seeks a candidate who is skilled at soothing tensions and can ensure a democratic debate on societal issues.
While the law firm has said there is a lot of genuine interest in the position, some people online simply didn’t believe the part-time job could be real. The vocabulary used in the advertisement was chosen to be deliberately provocative to encourage people to apply.
One of the tasks required by the new employee is to “relativise problems encountered using humour”. Sebastien Fanti, the lawyer in charge of the firm, justified the new role by saying that lawyers’ jobs have gotten more stressful in recent years. “Our job is even more difficult since the end of COVID. The blows are daily: we manage the hassles of others, rarely their successes. The happiness of those who work with me is therefore essential, but I don't necessarily have the time to take care of it”, Fanti told Watson.
Some of the comments posted below the job description show the Swiss sense of humour is alive and well. Commenters suggested a number of famous faces that could fill the new role - Swiss comedian Frédéric Recrosio was a common favourite.