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How not to write a cover letter (especially if you want the job) TO JACK SCOTT, VANCOUVER SUN
October 1, 1958
57 Perry Street New York City
Sir,
I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Time magazine did this week on The Sun. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I'd also like to offer my services.
Since I haven't seen a copy of the "new" Sun yet, I'll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a paper I didn't know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I'm not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley.
By the time you get this letter, I'll have gotten hold of some of the recent issues of The Sun. Unless it looks totally worthless, I'll let my offer stand. And don't think that my arrogance is unintentional: it's just that I'd rather offend you now than after I started working for you. [...]
The enclosed clippings should give you a rough idea of who I am. It's a year old, however, and I've changed a bit since it was written. I've taken some writing courses from Columbia in my spare time, learned a hell of a lot about the newspaper business, and developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you're trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I'd like to work for you.
Most of my experience has been in sports writing, but I can write everything from warmongering propaganda to learned book reviews.
I can work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don't give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.
I would rather be on the dole than work for a paper I was ashamed of. [...]
Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson
We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves. | |
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"Bring friends, bring your children and bring foot spray 'cause it's gon' be funky." ~ Prince
A kiss on the lips, is betta than a knife in the back ~ Sheila E Darkness isn't the absence of light, it's the absence of U ~ Prince | |
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fucking nut! I'd read him, but I would certainly never hire him! My Legacy
http://prince.org/msg/8/192731 | |
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He was 21 when he wrote that. We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves. | |
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I wouldn't have hired him at any age! My Legacy
http://prince.org/msg/8/192731 | |
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Somehow I'm not at all shocked at this.
I may not have hired him, but I'd darned sure have called him in for the interview. Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.” | |
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Co-sign I don't want you to think like me. I just want you to think. |
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Nope - they didn't hire him. We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves. | |
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Their loss. | |
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