New York--You kill me with how seriously you take yourself.
What happened to the days when someone walked into a place, said they were looking for work, and got hired if the manager thought they were a good kid?
Since when do I need a resume to fold clothes?
Or a cover letter to transfer VHDs to DVDs?
How do I even write that??
Like many of you, I am young, broke, and desperately in search of work. (luckily, I am not a college grad yet, otherwise I'd probably be crying in a corner*.) Here's the thing:
They say the economy is bad and there are no jobs available, but there are still tons of places (when not looking for slave labor interns) that are willing to pay some chumps to do some menial tasks (such as answering phones, pushing buttons, pretending to like people, folding things, standing there, taking up air, blinking, etc.). I see these places all the time, walking down the street, on craigslist, and in the fables my friends tell me of how they walked into a bar, asked for a job, and became a bartender with no experience what-so-ever.
What's so bothersome is the frontin' these shisters do, especially in NYC. Listen people, get real: Don't tell me that I need two references and a cover letter to work at your soon-to-be-closed boutique folding barely-there t-shirts, or that I'm gonna need at least 3 years of city experience to work at Uncle Zeek's Taco shack. Because its just not true. And furthermore, the last thing any of these employers want is a highly motivated enthusiastic worker who is looking to climb up the pay ladder and own the joint one day. Nuh-uh. You want someone who will work 4 days a week for $8.00 an hour doing whatever the hell you tell them too with minimal complaints. So you know what we should do instead of all this farcical "I am a really legit employer" "Well, I'm a highly qualified candidate" mumbo jumbo? We should just be real with each other.
I am a highly educated and highly impoverished college-student hipster-type kid just needing a place to work so that I can apply for food stamps. You are a wish-I-didn't-major-in-philosophy manager looking for someone to sit in a chair and answer phones/ mop the floor for 4 hours a day. You're not going to give me a raise, and I'm not going to ask for one. So let's cut the bullshit: you hire me, I make your office look good for a few hours, and we shake hands on Fridays. Sounds simple enough.
In conclusion,
Quit asking me to rack my brain trying to write a creative cover letter for a job that is only going to lead to boredom and utter waste of life.
* Just kidding recent grads, there is hope for you. Or you could always move to LA and suck a penis.
