Cover Letter

These boots were meant for working….

I’m sure that for most of the professional jobs I’ve had, I was offered an interview because of my cover letter. I was good at linking my experience and skills to what the job announcement seemed to want, and at throwing in something specific that showed I had actually done a little research about the organization, and at showing that I really, truly did want, was very interested in, and could actually perform, that job.

But I find myself now impaled on the horns of a dilemma (ouch!)

Because the job I really, truly want right now would put me back in them work boots up there, where I hauled ass around a very unusual warehouse belonging to a very wonderful non-profit organization. That job required primarily physical labor, energy and public speaking (I was really good at that) coupled with an ability to interact with volunteers (which I did with varying success. See “I have made children cry…” in an earlier post.)

I don’t even need the public speaking  (although “tour guide” or “docent” are jobs that were created with me in mind, for sure. I wonder how good the tips are, if the employer doesn’t steal them?) I just want to nod and smile and do as I’m told for at least 30 hours a week, in a job that requires engaging a very minor percentage of my brain and that keeps me on my feet, moving around, for most of the day. Because I lost a lot of weight that way, and being off work it is creeping back on, which ticks me off.

Plus which I am on the brink of losing my mind because of insufficient daily interaction with other sentient beings not related to me by blood. I assume there would be other sentient beings in a workplace, however, erm…”physical-labor focused” that workplace might be. There were many delightful ones in that unusual non-profit warehouse.

So, a cover letter. Hmm.

“Dear prospective employer:

I am a wildly overqualified not-ready-to-retire (read “can’t really keep behaving like I can afford to retire”) professional who has had it with high-stress jobs requiring substantial travel, endless meetings, junkety conferences and attentiveness to impossible goals expressed in ridiculously unrealistic numbers. I am seeking to return to full-time employment following a period of caregiving. (That should explain the gap in employment, and stir enough sympathy to move them off the fact that I have been voluntarily out of work for more than six months, and previously underemployed at that wonderful warehouse job for 18 months, if they have any decency at all).

I see that you operate a local manufacturing facility (insert warehouse, big box store, discount emporium etc. as appropriate) and require someone who can lift heavy boxes of stuff and carry them from one place to another (or insert “rearrange stuff on shelves,” “walk people from point A to point B, insisting that they keep within the defined pathway at all times,” etc., as appropriate) or operate a computer (cash register, iPad POS system, photocopy machine, camera, as appropriate), while standing for at least 7 hours a day.

I assure you I can do any of that stuff with my brain tied behind my back, leaving substantial intellect available for sharing snarky wisecracks with co-workers (as appropriate.)

I most sincerely promise to nod, smile and do what I’m told, no matter how contradictory it may be to what I had been told five minutes ago, and not to complain about wages that wouldn’t support a cat, much less a human being, as long as you’ll provide a regular schedule (I can dream, can’t I?) and a group health insurance plan that is actually accepted by local physicians and facilities (which I have a great one that is so accepted, right now, thanks to COBRA, but paying for it is bankrupting me, hence, the cover letter), whilst (hey, why not, throw in the British-y stuff – what warehouse wouldn’t want someone who uses words like “whilst?”) leaving enough of said small wages to pay for simple indulgences such as food, heat and electricity.

I long to don my composite-toe boots again and to re-aggravate former workplace injuries to my neck, shoulders and oblique muscles due to moving heavy things from place to place. I am able to operate a walkie-talkie, an electric pallet jack and a pallet lift, but forklifts are where I draw the line, buster.

You’d be a fool not to call me. Resume’ with very long list of former high-stress professional positions, and a few years of retail and headset monkey underemployment thrown in, enclosed for your convenience. Act now, this opportunity won’t last.

Yours most sincerely,

Wildly overqualified

(and older than you want to hire, but there are laws against that, dude. Yeah, I know, nobody ever wins those lawsuits, or can afford to file them in the first place, but hey, couldn’t hurt to remind you it might happen, right?)”

Pretty good, huh? What employer could resist?

No?

OK, well, I guess I’d better rethink that strategy, and rewrite that letter, as I look out the window on a lovely sunny but damn frigid day, which seems to have exacerbated (ha! that’s almost as good as “whilst”) what must be the dawn of osteoarthritis in my hips and fingers, of all places, which is why I didn’t take my walk today, but I did go to my low-impact aerobics class. Which is another reason I’m sore. But I like being sore – it means I worked hard and beat up my fat ass enough to maybe drop a quarter pound today, grrrr.

I did not, however, accomplish my goal of applying for a job. Any job.

Well, there’s always tomorrow.

Until then, I remain,

your most devoted, humble, obedient, etc.

Ridiculouswoman