The Little, Black Handbook: Business Writing

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a recent graduate from a Master’s program at a very prestigious university, as well as an erstwhile Fulbright Scholar. Capital “S,” since I’m that good. I wrote my Master’s thesis on a relatively obscure German film, using literary theory to interpret the use of objects in the socio-political context of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As you can see, I am very smart. What might be less obvious is that I am also very desperate.

Don’t be afraid of my prodigious intellect—use it to your advantage! I majored in English, folks. That’s the educational equivalent of an old French whore: I really can and will do anything you want, as long as you pay up front. Update a website? Ooooh, I’m on it! Copyedit a scientific journal? Bring it on. Clear an accounting backlog on a DOS-based system? Oh….kay. Sort, alphabetize, and file pay stubs for all 3 million of Chicago’s small businesses? Fine, let me just get some lube first.

My Master’s degree has been, thus far, as useful as a fart in a mitten. I know of people who’ve lied about having a Master’s (i.e. said they didn’t have one) in order to get jobs. But I’m going to be honest. I need a job. I beg you, please help me. I cannot look at the Chicago Reader’s classifieds anymore. Why is it that all of Chicago’s businesses need telemarketers? Is that really all there is out there in the way of employment? The promise of a daily verbal castigation at the hands of people who don’t even know who Murakami is? As if I were selling herpes rather than, say, symphony tickets? I cannot stress enough the severely detrimental effect that sort of job would have on my self-esteem.

And I am not waitressing. Not because I spit on food or anything, but because I have no balance or grace whatsoever and would be fired within a week for dumping catfish and hot coffee on my customers. And I cannot do hair. At least, not anyone else’s, and really, were someone to look at my head right this minute, they’d think I couldn’t do my own, either. And that is pretty much all there is in the way of jobs on the Chicago Reader’s website. So thank you for…nothing. Nothing but the prospect of having the self-esteem of a 6’4” 150 lb. teenage D&D freak with pizza face and big hands. Thanks again. No, really.

All I’m looking for is a job where I am allowed to use my brain, even if it’s only a little bit. And not to do mathematical equations (see above, re: English major), or make my fingers type a bit faster. Is it too much to ask to be challenged intellectually, rather than sane…ally? And oh, to not be paid in chicken-flavored crackers and/or food stamps? Where in the Bible is it written that companies cannot pay a person above $28,000 for doing something remotely fun and interesting, else the entire outfit be turned into a corporate accounting firm and everyone who works there will have to wear pantyhose or ties?

Seriously, how can anyone expect a person to survive on $16,000 a year in this century? And again without benefits! I live in a frakking city! That’s Latin for death, people. I need to know that if I get hit by the 151 bus or trampled in the L, I won’t have to pay for it. Fiscally, anyway. I realize that there are trillions of people out there who’d be so happy to be paid $16,000 a year, and for far worse work. I know this. I am a bad person to want to be paid a lot of money to do something I might like. But you know, in a world where Tom Cruise can impregnate a woman, I think it’s possible that there might just be a job out there for me that doesn’t make me want to sell my soul to the devil just because there’s nothing else to do.

If you find that this cover letter speaks to you in any way, if you by some freakish chance find that you might want to even interview me, then please, call me. Email me. Send a carrier pigeon. Whatever! I will happily put my life on hold so that I may slap on a business suit in 100 degree weather, take the red line full of freaks to the Loop to then trudge the 80 blocks to your office building in high heels, and try and convince you with my perfect posture and faux eagerness that I am right for your company. I am, I swear. You just don’t know it yet.

Sincerely,
The Germanatrix