Sunday, February 11, 2007

My Cover Letter for my Application to the World's Strongest Man Company

Dear President of the World’s Strongest Man Association,

Allow me to say right up front that I am a huge fan of your organization. I have always admired the creativity of The World’s Strongest Man competitions. Your company is clearly the world leader in the discovering new ways for large men to lift, carry, drag, and throw heavy objects. Where a lesser organization would be perfectly happy to have a beefy gentleman carry one refrigerator you insist upon giving him two. While a less ambitious corporation would simply have forty pound beer kegs lifted, you tell them to throw the kegs over a 14 foot wall, backwards, over their heads. The list could go on. Your resourcefulness in the area of testing the physical strength of Norwegians is, in my ever so humble opinion, nothing short of genius. Some people look at an anchor and see nothing more than a heavy piece of metal to moor a ship. When the people in your organization look at an anchor, you see a cool looking weight for a six-foot-five-inch behemoth to race across a thirty yard track. Your organization should be proud of the immense strides you have made in the ever competitive field strong men contests.

While I am no strong man – I am actually quite far from it – I feel that I would be a valuable asset to your company. While I lack the physical strength of the world’s strongest men, I make up for with strength of mind and creativity. I have spent long hours imagining my own strong man competitions. I feel that, while the great minds in your think tanks have thought up myriad wondrous strong man tests, I have the depth of imagination to take your competitions to the next level. There are many heavy things which your competitors are currently asked to hoist, carry, and/or throw – large stones, tree trunks, anchors, and small European automobiles to name only a few – but there are so many heavy things which you have yet implement. Have you, for instance, considered pianos, steamer trunks filled with hardcover books, old-fashioned console televisions, or full-sized marble statues of horses? These are just a few heavy items I would love to witness your contestants lift, race, or toss. Some preferably tossed.

Also, while I applaud you for truly testing the mighty to crown the World’s Strongest Man, but I am a little disappointed that none of your events test for either intellectual or emotional strength. I am aware this is not the primary motive for your company, but the title of your program is not ‘The World’s Physically Strongest Man’. I have, I feel, strong suggestions on how these other elements of strength can be worked into competition. For instance, while dead lifting a large log contestants can be asked simple math questions. Contestants can debate economic theory while pulling sleds weighted with fifty canon balls. Inform every contestant individually that for every event they fail to win, an innocent puppy will be executed. During the finals, upgrade from puppy to human infant. These are just a few of the several ideas I have which will truly test every level of human strength, thereby making your event even more compelling.

Clearly, I am the perfect candidate for a position in your organization and your organization is the perfect match for my unique talents. I fully believe your company offers the best environment for my creative powers of thinking of crazy things for really strong people to do to blossom. I have attached my resume to this letter. I can be reached by the phone number given or via e-mail. If I am unavailable are just a few of the several ideas I have which will truly test every level of human strength, thereby making your event even more compelling.

Clearly, I am the perfect candidate for a position in your organization and your organization is the perfect match for my unique talents. I fully believe your company offers the best environment for my creative powers of thinking of crazy things for really strong people to do to blossom. I have attached my resume to this letter. I can be reached by the phone number given or via e-mail. If I am unavailable, I will return your message as soon as possible. I thank you for any time spent in considering this application. Good day.

Shalom

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Memo From The VP of Youth Marketing

I am pleased to report success which far exceeds our most generous early projections. The youth of this day and age are the perfect for our uses. They are malleable. They can be bent and folded to fill almost any use we can find for them. Honestly, the permutations seem to be endless. These children are the perfect consumer vessels. We have them by the nose. We can lead them anywhere.

The key to leading the youth is convincing them they are not being led. Children and teenagers in particular will do almost anything if you convince them it is there own idea. Every adolescent wants to be different, but they all conform. Have you looked out from your hundredth story corner office recently and observed these teens. There are about four different groups all of which feature children who are pretty much indistinguishable from each other within the group. I take a particular pleasure in the group I have dubbed the Ravens. The kids have other names for the group. It has elements of punk, goth, renaissance fairs, and what some nitwit has dubbed emo. You may recognize these children. If you have seen one, you have seen them all. They travel in packs, three or more children with jet black hair falling across their faces. Most amazing of all is they all wear woman’s pants, even the males. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell even the sex of these children. From the back they all look the same. (This has quite honestly led to some conflicting confused feelings within myself, but this memo is no place for any personal revelations.)

From the outside these children are almost impossible to market to. They present a monolithic façade, impossible to penetrate from without. However, once inside their group they can be molded to any shape you desire. Tell me to get them to start wearing bow ties, you will probably see it on MTV within the hour.

You see, I am inside.

Please, I know when you read this you will scoff. I can imagine you choking on your thirty year old scotch. You, obviously, want to know how I got inside, how I got groups of conformist disaffected youths to accept me, a forty five year old Harvard MBA. The answer is easy. They have never actually met me. I am their friend only via the internet. I have a MySpace account. Actually, I have been operating an average of eight accounts at any given time. My most common is under the name DAarC&An*gEL. Why the terrible punctuation, spelling, and capitalization, you ask? The simple answer is kids today are stupid. The more pertinent answer is that I need to maintain credibility with the youths. I must appear, at least on-line, as one of them. My page has a black layout and my profile picture is nothing but a black and white photograph of a black boot with a needless amount of buckles floating in a rancid pond. I have over 800 hundred friends, none of which I have actually met. I communicate with them via comment boards and bulletins. I can start trends. I can lead. I have sway.

As an added bonus, I have managed to get these teens to actually enjoy taking surveys. No sensible person enjoys taking these surveys, but these kids are practically addicted to it. I am slowly molding them to become the most marketing controlled generation in industry history. Through extensive surveying I am zoning in on exactly what they want and how they think. I am slowly fazing in more marketing centric questions into the surveys. Now sandwiched between questions about your BFF and who was the last person you kissed, I plop in questions such as: Pepsi or Coke. And the children respond. They will answer anything in these surveys. We have almost unlimited access. Soon we will have complete control over these children. We will rule the future.

Shalom