Applying for jobs sucks. It’s awkward and painful and time-consuming. I wouldn’t know – I’m barely employed – but this is what I hear. But some people know how to do it right – how to avoid getting caught in the rat-trap of sweaty-palmed interviews and communicate a certain level of coolness at the same time. Presented below is one such person’s job application. Please – read it, and learn to be a better person.

Hi

I’m 47 years old, a business owner/designer for the company PHI, have recently moved to the Cape and find myself in need of a source of supplemental income. I probably have way too many interests to make a good employee for any company, but suspect that I would be able to make up for this with sheer enthusiasm and a, probably essential, modicum of desperation.

I’m interested in just about anything that allows the possibility of attaining outstanding and uncompromising quality and which involves the mind and senses in some or other conjunction. These interests have, over the years, included the growing of orchids, writing, knowing just about everything about fine wines, working as a chef (and as a barman), collecting, studying, performing and composing avant-garde, classical and other music, steering motorcycles over terrain best avoided, lunging at much swifter persons in Taekwondo outfits and designing, and occasionally building, exceptional loudspeakers and amplifiers.

My life has, almost regrettably, also included roughly seventeen years of mindlessly offering coffee and tea to airliner passengers, leaving me out of touch with many of my earlier interests including physics, philosophy, psychology, languages and literature, the arts and astronomy. This I have begun to address.

What I would presently like to involve myself in is winemaking, or, perhaps more sensibly, the activities surrounding the making of wines – anything from working as cellar assistant to writing about or marketing wines. I’m not particularly skilled at deception and would as a consequence be much more comfortable if these wines were to be of undeniable quality, particularly if my activities were to include convincing individuals of buying them.

I’ll be sending this letter to any and all producers of wine I can visualise myself working for, hoping to be offered a chance of doing so and some degree of remuneration. For this indiscretion I hope to be forgiven.

Sincerely

Jacques van Zyl

Jacques van Zyl, you are cooler than we are, and we salute you.

[Thanks, Cameron!]

[image via PHI Audio]