How Many Ways do You Have to Say "No"?

College for Creative Studies.

For a number of years, I chaired the Liberal Arts Department. As Chair, I received job inquiries to teach liberal arts classes (i.e., all non-studio classes).

One day, I received a letter that I have ever since used as a model of the worst, most counter-productive job application I have ever seen.

This was an application to teach sociology.

The letter was handwritten, in pencil, on yellow lined paper, torn from a pad.

I understood that the person was applying for a teaching job, but the incompetence with not only grammar and mechanics, but clarity of expression, made that a difficult message to decipher. Of course, a college-level teaching position was absolutely out of the question. If the tone hadn't been serious, the letter might even have been a joke. It was a joke, but unintentional.

However, knowing how cold institutional silence can seem, or a form-letter response, I decided to do the writer a favor. I wrote tactfully (a formal, typed letter in my most polished chairmanly prose) that in the future, the writer should type the application on good paper and make sure to proofread carefully for grammar, mechanics, and clarity of expression. I sent my reply off, feeling that I had helped someone along the way to her career.

A week or so later, however, I received another letter. Again, it was handwritten--I should say scrawled--in pencil, on yellow lined paper, torn from a pad. The writer said she was sorry if there was any misunderstanding in her previous letter and requested, with what seemed like blithe and clueless self-assurance, a convenient time for an interview. My account of this letter completely misrepresents its miserable confusion and virtual illiteracy. It was an utter disaster that no human resources director would look at for a second.

Most appalling to me was that my own letter had made no impression whatever. There was no acknowledgment of anything I had said. In fact, just the opposite. It was as though I had complimented her on her training and suggested that she was perfect for the job. I had heard of surrealism, but never before experienced it.

This time, the yellow, scrawled page, torn from a pad, went into the trash.