Please Consider My Application to Give You Labor So I Can Stay Alive

To Whom It May Concern, or To Whom It May Not Concern Whatsoever,

Thank you for considering my application to show up in a building for 40 hours a week doing whatever tasks you want me to do. I am excited for the opportunity to dedicate my most productive hours, days, weeks, months, and potentially years of my life to your enterprise, in exchange for your giving me paper that allows me to stay alive.

I am reaching out because I think that my skills match your needs as a company. I have a body and brain that can be transported wherever I am told to go; you, meanwhile, have a repository of funds — a small percentage of which could be used to secure my labor for as long as you care to keep me around. (And by around, I mean here on this Earth.)

I must say, I think I would be an excellent fit for your company culture. Upon some cursory research, I learned that your employees share a common purpose: showing up to the office every day and following instructions so that they can eat, have a place to sleep, and (maybe) get access to healthcare. I am confident that as a member of your corporate team, I would immediately demonstrate those qualities too.

I am also impressed by your benefits package. Not only do your employees receive money that allows them to purchase basic necessities — you also provide them with other money that can be used for luxury goods, like clothes, air conditioning units, and plane tickets home to visit their grandmothers in the hospital.

Further, I was encouraged to see that dedicated workers who receive conditional promotions over the course of a few decades or so are sometimes rewarded with additional money, in the height of largesse: this results in occasional day trips to the beach, the chance to own the dwelling they reside in, and even the right to stop performing labor in the last few years before their death (assuming natural causes).

If you look at my résumé, I think you’ll find that I have extensive relevant experience that I could bring to the table after onboarding. In the formative years of my life, I attended primary school in exchange for not being detained per truancy laws in my home state; I then matriculated to college, where I cut my teeth going to classes in exchange for a framed sheet of cardstock that was a prerequisite for submitting this application. (I also literally cut my teeth but couldn’t do anything about it because my parents don’t have dental insurance.)

During that time, I also took on several unpaid internships in exchange for the increased probability of securing other unpaid internships. So, all of this is to say: I know what it takes to voluntarily surrender my autonomy to an organization in an effort to continue existing. In other words, I am all about that hustle!

I understand that this is a competitive position, and you’ll be receiving hundreds of similar applications from other qualified individuals. And it would be ethically unjustifiable for me to argue that my humanity is somehow superior to that of the other applicants, and that you should select me, leaving the others to find some other means of making a living.

Yet, at the same time: I am arguing that my humanity is somehow superior to that of the other applicants. You should select me. Leave the others to find some other means of making a living.

I am fully aware of the prestige associated with this company and the role I would be taking on. That’s why I can pledge right now that if I am given an offer, I will happily field LinkedIn messages from future prospective employees and give them advice about how they too can improve their chances of serving your company’s interests. That advice will include, and be limited to, “just keep putting apps out there,” “be yourself in the interview,” and “you can mention my name but it probably won’t make a difference.”

Thank you so much for your consideration. I can’t wait to hear back from you. Really, I genuinely can’t.