Cover Letters Are My Specialty

I hope my saint of a typing teacher is happy now

In the wormhole of adolescence, there exists a class. It’s the one when you realize your limitations. For some people it’s statistics, for others it’s organic chemistry.

Mine was typing.

It wasn’t because I was a bad typist — in fact, I excelled. Once I overcame the natural fear of white-out, it was all downhill and uphill and downhill again.

I learned on a manual typewriter that weighed more than my desk. The black keys were neatly polished every year, since 1948 when this particular model came off the assembly line.

The black ribbon shone like an inky moon on a moonless night.

The level of concentration was extreme. A normal person could — if not paying absolute attention — lose a pinky between the Q and W.

Amputations were common and expected.

The teacher was such a nice person, and I genuinely loved typing but herein lay the problem. I didn’t know it then but I have the mind of a philosopher and the soul of a typist.

The body of a cantaloupe and the heart of a banana.

Fruitful I was not, and I sat before my typewriter while I stood on the lofty perch/cliff overlooking adulthood.

A waif, an innocent, a dumbass.

In the instant I felt Cupid’s arrow and was impaled with that love that could speak it’s name, so I clammed up. Because that is what happens when you experience a love that cannot speak it’s name. That’s the point. You go silent.

It’s really isolating, okay.

I couldn’t admit this scandalous secret to anyone, least of all to myself. If only Oscar Wilde could’ve risen from the grave and explained that ultimately, it’s better not to tell people because there will never be a pride parade for so-called gifted people who love typing.

It was becoming obvious people wanted more of me. A lot more.

In typing class, we learned to write letters to future employers. Why, we knew not. How, we knew less.

Yet our saintly teacher, Mrs. Wertyu, explained that we needed to cover two main points.

(1) Why we wanted the job

(2) Why we were the best possible person for the job

Late Midlife Letter Writing Campaign

My current cover letters have evolved or possibly rotted on the vine. They resemble a series of pleas combined with a potpourri of over-perfumed baubles, framed by my actual skills which have not changed since I was 26.

Typing, 60 wmp. Ten key by touch. Presentation skills. Writing skills. Nunchuck skills.

I’ve come to understand it makes no difference if I lie and therefore I should include “earnest, sincere, and not cut out for this world.”

Making up a fictional cover letter is slightly illegal yet rarely prosecuted, and based on the ads I’m reading, possibly necessary.

It’s obvious they want cogs, so why not be the coggiest?

Dear Hiring Committee

I type 90 words per minute in Wordpress, Word, Wordplay, and Wordle.

I know CPR, CAD, APA, and R. And Droople and AI. And AND and/or OR. Suffice to say, if it has the letter A or R, I know it like the back of my hand.

I am so flexible my middle name is Pretzella and I never sleep, unless you ask me to because I can nod off on command, and cry on command but I would never cry at work because nobody likes a pussy.

Yet I would cry in front of a police officer because no one is ever speeding and Patriarchy. #girlpower #crymeariver

I can quote from Princess Bride, unless you don’t like that movie (what are you — some kind of monster?) in which case I can quote from Unforgiven, The Great Escape, Napolean Dynamite, and Tremors.

“Hell of a thing killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.

Yeah, well I guess he had it comin’.

We all got it comin’, kid.”

I am a Native English speaker who scored a 6 on the GRE in writing, plus studied ancient Greek, published a novel, wrote academic articles, and can speak fluent Esperanto while juggling a thesaurus, dictionary, and Scrabble dictionary.

The sad fact is almost all of that is true.

Am I overselling or underselling or is the truth much worse? Is selling now an overinflated exercise ball we must balance on while kissing Grammarly’s pimply ass?

George Costanza could fake being a marine biologist so I can shout it to the world now: I want nothing more than to live the dream of highly paid typist.

Typist B

I once had a position called Typist B. I’m not sure what Typist A did, but it was marginally better than what I was doing, which amounted to mostly opening mail.

I’m not totally clear on whether B was higher status than A, in fact. Was the B position analogous to “II” or did A trump B as in school grades? What a diabolical hierarchy!

I was good friends with a temp worker who had no title, although I did not lord this over him because the whole A/B thing put me on shaky professional ground.

They kept us guessing at the Secretary of State's office. We both thought the job was hilarious. Right before I left, they tasked me with doing some scanning and said I was so good at it, why not write a manual?

I dove in with the glee of a river otter and the intensity of a pair of leather chaps.

My scanning manual included not only simple instructions — as I was explicitly told it must — but I drew pictures because back then graphics were not something you willy-nilly plucked off the web.

They hired a full-time scanner who had Down syndrome and paid him more.

My mail room buddy and I could’ve never have foreseen such surreal levels of hilarity.

I laughed and cried and vaulted past Typist A to Clerk D.

Go Ahead and Arrest Me

I can write in multiple formats including technical, feature, academic, SEO, limerick, graffiti, dental, and with invisible ink.

I’m comfortable making block letters with a magic marker on a whiteboard but equally at home with a crossbow against a clear blue sky.

I can write on literally any topic and have the sad evidence to prove this.

If Grammarly didn’t exist, I could still write.

I can write in pencil, charcoal, sand, foam, and my own piss.

And I’m not even a guy!

Since it’s not illegal to make up a professional past out of whole cloth, as long as you don’t claim a degree you don’t have and nail that sh*t to your office wall in a framed fake diploma, there is no reason not to lie.

According to The Internet, “Pretending to be a lawyer is not a good idea although it has worked for some.”

The main way people get found out is when they sue their former employer for being let go, but I would never do that because I’ve read the Internet.

No one can prove I can’t write in my own piss, nor would anyone want to.

No one can prove I’m not able to write without Grammarly because Grammarly won’t stand for that sort of behavior, and neither will its fake lawyer.

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Jean Campbell is based in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She has been writing on Medium for years and recently published her first novel, Down and Out on the Road South, with Wings ePress.