The cover letter I would love to send... but won't

*This letter was spurred by a depressing day of job-hunting.  I became angry and depressed at my lack of options and my increasing feelings of hopelessness and I needed to let out everything that had been building up inside of me, even if it was just by writing a letter than no one would read. Thus, this began as a hypothetical angry letter to all the employers who I felt never gave me a fair chance... then it turned into a more general rant about the sick and twisted dynamic that exists between companies and employees/potential employees.  Maybe someone will stumble on this and derive some catharsis from these words I have written. Or maybe it will linger unwritten.  In any case...

Dear No Longer Potential Employer;

I am writing this letter to you today to thank you for the “chance” to work for you.  I sincerely hope that you found the perfect candidate for your position since you have so readily chosen to dismiss a qualified and competent candidate such as myself.

I have so much to offer, so much I want to give in terms of my time, skills, intelligence, and dedication, yet you, like so many others, have (seemingly arbitrarily) chosen to dismiss me, to write off my potential, and I am left a person (yeah, we peons are actually people) with no place in this world, with much to give, but with apparently nothing anyone wants.  You continually choose people who are under-qualified, unskilled, unknowledgeable, and flat-out incompetent.  I know this, because I’ve seen it in so many of the people that you and others of your ilk choose to employ.  It seems that no matter what I do- no matter how many times I overhaul my resume or rewrite my cover letter- you always choose vapid, mediocre candidates whose qualifications are akin to mere window-dressing on an otherwise vacant house. 

I am not denying that your position gives you the “right” to make whatever decisions you choose in terms of who you employ, but I cannot help expressing my anger and frustration at your omnipotence and the power it gives you to brand me as worthless, as someone to be relegated to the dust bin of society.  Do you realize that I will soon be without a place to live?  Do you realize that I can’t afford to eat or maintain my health as I ought to?  No you don’t, because clearly if you did you wouldn’t look down your nose at me if my interview clothes are a little worn or my lack of a salon-perfect hairstyle and expensive handbag.  When a person can’t afford to buy a gallon of milk, do you honestly expect that they’ll be able to maintain your ideal image for a job that they don’t even know you’ll give them?  Do you?  Food for thought as you sit in your Lexus during rush hour tonight.

You can write me off as a disgruntled “kid” (I’m 26!) who likes to whine about all the injustice in this world while still being relatively privileged, and I won’t dispute that I am luckier than a great many people, but I write this letter not only on my behalf, but on the behalf of others whom you have marginalized and kicked aside for petty and often arbitrary reasons.  I write this letter for those who have families to support, for those who are dangerously close to living on the street, for those who are not just going without food, but are starving.  I write this letter for those who are sick and can’t even afford to go to a doctor.  I write this letter on behalf of all those who have struggled to live.  I write this letter for all those who must take soul-crushing, spirit-stealing, time-wasting, abusive, low-wage jobs in order to eke out some semblance of an existence only so that they can come back the next day and churn out profits to feed your selfish extravagances. 

You complain about the “welfare queens”, the people on government assistance, the unemployed.  Those whom you see (despite reality being much different) as sucking our economy dry, as lazy good-for-nothing human beings who do nothing but lie around in front of the TV eating Cheetos for 15 hours a day and expect the rest of society to take care of them.  You say poverty is one’s own fault, for not working hard enough, for not being smart enough.  You say people make their own problems and should take responsibility.  You think that this absolves you of any responsibility. Well I’m here to tell you that the only way that people can take care of themselves is if they have the means to do it.  In this society that means securing gainful, steady employment for a wage that a person and their family can realistically live on, and yet you so callously turn up your nose at these people, hold the golden carrot every farther away, and then turn around and complain. 

I have news for you: you may think you are in power, and indeed right now you are, but when you marginalize, abuse, and dismiss an ever-increasing group of people, you are putting yourself in a dangerous position.  It has been proven throughout history, that the less people have to lose, the more likely it is that they will rise up and fight.  You can kick aside me and everyone else, but you are creating a group of desperate, angry, hopeless, marginalized human beings, that when left with no options and nowhere to turn, will not be afraid to band together and take action against those who have put them in that position.  We will make our problems your problems and we will resort to forcefully pulling your head out of the sand if we must.  It is only a matter of time.  Are you prepared to face the repercussions?  We are like caged animals and you are poking us with sharp sticks- it is only a matter of time before even the most complacent among us will lash out with a fiery viciousness.  I know. I used to be one of the complacent.  And I was the sweet, even-tempered animal who kept getting kicked around.  Now spurred by my anger and the seemingly hopeless nature of my situation, I will lash out with vitriol and rage.  How dare you deny me?!  How dare you say I have nothing to give?  How dare you make me feel a worthless human being?  I am not!  Nobody is, and I am using the little I have left to make that abundantly clear.     

In conclusion, fuck you and fuck your company.  

But please do not hesitate to contact me regarding future job opportunities. 

Sincerely,

AnonaGirl

Harlem by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore-

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over-

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

A diatribe on protest and social change

I’ve stopped believing people are stupid.  I’ve stopped believing that the average person wants to grope blindly and helplessly through life.  I’ve stopped believing that people truly want pacification by all the inane trappings our society offers.  Ignorance is different than stupidity.  Ignorance is simply a lack of information, a lack of knowledge of alternatives.  Ignorance is a lack of believing that one person or group of people can affect any sort of positive change or even knowing where to start or what to do.  Ignorance is not the shortcoming of one individual or group.  Ignorance is systematic.  Ignorance is inborn and ingrained in all of us. 

I think it is misguided at best for the activist to approach the systematic ignorance ingrained in society with the attitude of “these people don’t know any better- we have to educate them to see the world through our (the correct) lens”.  That is a rather presumptuous attitude and one which I believe turns many off from noble causes and from actually mobilizing to affect change. 

You can feed people documented facts and truths all you want, but to truly be driven to try to create change, people have to first feel a personal and direct impact.  You can disseminate information about the plight of the American worker and the scourge of corporatism and the growing divide between filthy rich and dirt poor (among many other social ills), until your face turns blue and you wear through the soles of your shoes, but it will not make one damn bit of difference to a person who has not felt the ever tightening screws of the vise on our very humanity. 

That is why I believe that there will be no mass uproar, no protest, until enough people have suffered themselves the injustices of our current broken society.  Even those now who are struggling, who are feeling themselves pinched through every aspect of their lives, but are still eking out survival are unlikely to be motivated toward involvement.  Take the plight of the typical Wal-Mart employee, for example: after working long hours with no benefits and a paycheck that could not support one person, much less an entire family, do you really think that after they’ve been on their feet 40, 50, 60 hours a week, they’ll have the time, energy, or inclination to any great social action?  Do you really think that they can just hop in their car and drive several hours to hold a stupid sign?  Do you really think that they want to?  Do you really think that they can afford the gas, food, and related expenses just to go stand in a disgruntled crowd for a few hours?  Do you really think that after working 40, 50, 60 hours a week they’re going to be so willing to sacrifice what little personal time they have for themselves and their families to go to a protest? Hell, I wouldn’t!

As much as I hate to say it, most people will only be driven to act through anger and desperation.  Say this “typical” Wal-Mart employee loses their job or loses their government benefits (on which many Wal-Mart employees are encouraged by the company itself to rely); this person now faces the real possibility that their family, although struggling before, may now be completely deprived of food, shelter, and good health.  Say 100, 500, 1,000, 50,000 workers face this very real possibility- confronted with such a state of desperation- these people, who now have little left but their anger and helplessness, will be the ones to rattle the bars on the cage.  

You can sit on your folding chair in your climate controlled room and complain about the ills of society.  And you can talk about the poor ignorant people in Anytown, IN, who need to be “educated” into your way of seeing the world.  And you can go to your protests and wave your signs about the injustices halfway across the country or around the globe, but these people, these people to whom little is given and more and more is stolen, these people whom you feel you must “educate” these are the people who will do the true fighting.  Not you, the 20-something urban idealist.  Not you.

The war needs to be waged in our small towns and communities.  Focus needs to be put on organizing, on not trying to “win” people over to a particular ethos or “educate” people into your way of thinking.  Focus needs to be put on meeting people where they are, of encouraging people to stand up for themselves and for each other and see the impact on themselves and others of the injustices that are continually wrought upon them; in small cities and communities I believe there is a great potential for this.  The somewhat insular attitude of many small towns is a blessing in this case- because instead of a mass of nameless faces, the somewhat cliquish attitude of many small towns (despite all its obvious ugliness), can be easily channeled to yield personal connections, yield a knowledge of the problems of your friends and neighbors, and can begin to create a close-knit fabric of interdependence and community solidarity.  That is how I believe the war will be waged if we have any hope of truly winning.