Cover Letter From Hell

RE: HONEST WORK

Dear Sir/Madam

I read with interest your advertisement on www.areyoudesperate.com, and would very much like to apply for the position. I attach a scanty and disjointed CV for your perusal.

In brief, I have been self-employed for several months now, but my employer has shown no interest in furthering my career prospects. It’s ironic, really- a former employer was funded in part by the United Nations, so I was UNemployed. Now I’ve gone lower-case. Before you get the impression that you can add –able to that word, I’d like to interject.

See, it’s been six months since I had a salary. You can imagine how that must be. Maybe. Think about it: How many months would you last before your painstakingly constructed universe fell apart if you were out of work? Well, I recognized that mine would have a sell-by date of perhaps two months, if I ignored the clothing account I’d opened in order to buy clothes. For work. Let it be said, that I was then, and remain, a hopeful, optimistic person. It has nothing to do with conceit, or self-deception, but I imagined that, given a diligent attitude and a winning smile, I’d quickly find another position.

And here I am, perhaps two or three hundred applications later. Unemployed. Of course, I made an effort to develop a sustainable income by spamming every single contact I had and reminding them, sometimes on my knees, only just managing to stop short of a cardboard sign, that I am a great writer.

Yeah. You’d think it would be easier? So much rubbish out there- so many campaigns cut and pasted from other ones, which weren’t that good to begin with; so much communication which appears to have been written by the same hard-working guy who writes instruction manuals for electronic goods. I can almost picture him, wishing he could use more adjectives, instead, having to tell people to connect wire-port A to machine cusp X, especially when neither of those parts are labeled in such a way in the plans, but there you go- that’s the thankless job of a writer.

Uh huh, you’d think it was easy to write, but it isn’t. Especially when the brief has more holes in it than a crocheted g-string, but I still love to do it. You know why? Because I had an affair. I used to do things like work behind a till in a bookshop, or check in cars to be serviced, but then my id seemed to take over. Bad id! I said, but ids are notoriously bad at listening, so it overruled me. It started to flirt with writing. An article here. A chapter of a book there. Nothing too serious. But, in the way of affairs, it caught up with me. Before I knew it I was maintaining two blogs, selling business writing, populating websites. It was as though I had a lifetime of wild oats I needed to sow, and didn’t care about the format or the context any more. Man. I just knew I had to write or be damned!

I’d looked at my expenses- you know- three children, rent, food and of course the usual debts we city-dwellers incur with our hedonistic lifestyles, and guessed at a figure I’d need to earn. I’m chuckling as I think of that, now, because I’d be happy with even half of that amount.

I digress. I’m impressed that you manage to stay sane in the position you are- having to discern with velour polo neck psychic powers the extent to which someone is employable from a CV. Are you kidding me? Mine looks like it was designed by dyslexic spiders. Hang on…

Sorry about that- homeless guy just knocked on the door, can you imagine! He wanted me to give him stuff. I’m tempted to ask him for his card in case I’m habitat-challenged quite soon.

Where was I? Ah. So you can pick up stuff from a CV, right? Well, I must have inadvertently added some typos. See, mine should read: multifaceted and experienced, but, judging from the lack of response, must actually read: mildly dysfunctional and smelly. I can’t understand why I’ve only ever had three responses after sending application after application.

I’d better not keep you. I suspect you have lots of emails to ignore, and facebook statuses (or is that stati?) to update.

Perhaps I’ll bump into you soon, but if not, I wish you well in your career. Feel free to keep my unglamorous tirade on file, for future reference.

Yours truly,

Scott

Please refer to cardboard sign for personal details.