We are only looking for team members with:
1. PASSION, a super human love of pastries and coffee.
2. COMMITMENT to learning and challenging themselves towards excellence.
3. A true value for TEAMWORK, kindness and helpfulness.
4. FLEXIBILITY to grow and change with a start-up business.
Within your cover letter, please answer the following questions:
1. Where did your passion for pastries and coffee begin?
2. Describe a time when you challenged yourself towards excellence.
Compensation based on experience.
- Excerpted from a help-wanted ad – Craigslist Vancouver.
To Whom It May Concern:
I believe I have the sort of passion you're looking for. It cannot be a coincidence that your ad uses the phrase "super human" to describe a love of pastries and coffee.
At first, I could not believe my eyes. That is, in fact, exactly the phrase I have always used to describe my love of both things. Until this moment, I had never encountered another person who could even conceive of the depth of affection that can be felt for baked goods and caffeinated beverages and how they inspire emotions not felt by mere mortals. How the faintest hint of espresso, a whiff carried on cynical winds across great thieving oceans, standing beside even a twilight silhouette of a croissant, can lift me like some Nietzschean Übermensch above the mediocrity of common people, above the useless notions of good and evil; above the bleating herd until I am stretched across the abyss; not an end but a bridge. Is my love of pastries and coffee super human? You'd better believe it is.
By "Teamwork" I assume you are asking whether I can function as part of a collective. Make no mistake, while my love of pastries and coffee may exceed all love felt by lesser men, I am able to tolerate those who are incapable of experiencing a degree of passion equal to my own. Can I share power and make decisions on a consensus-driven and egalitarian basis for the benefit of the "team?" I assure you, I can. More than that, though, I can impart what it means to truly and passionately love pastries and coffee.
I have carefully considered the two questions you have posed.
While it is difficult for me to recall the exact moment my passion for pastries and coffee was ignited, I remember making my first croissant at the age of three at the side of my grand-mère, a French pastry chef who owned a small bakery on Rue Friante in Paris. By the time I was five I had perfected not only the croissant, but mille-feuille, macaron and palmier. A stout woman with a ruddy complexion, my grand-mère, who was quick to anger, instilled in me a passion and respect for pastry that I carry with me to this day. "Francois," she said to me (she often forgot my name), "some day someone will ask where your passion for pastry and coffee comes from, and you will tell them what I have taught you.
"The coffee, you will learn from my idiot husband who spends all night tinkering in his shed," she added lovingly.
My passion for coffee did come later, and was instilled in me (as grand-mère predicted) by my grandfather, an Italian engineer, coffee roaster, and a master barista who acted as official barista to three Italian presidents. I remember many afternoons with Nonno Angelo, acting as his assistant as he perfected the piston-driven espresso machine. His roasting prowess was known around the world. His latte art has been the subject of several dissertations and is still widely debated in academic circles.
As for a time when "I challenged myself towards excellence," that time is right now. It is yesterday and tomorrow. It is last year and it is my first breath. It is the moment which has just passed. Like that. Just then.
And now too.
The point being that there has not been a moment in my life when I have not challenged myself to be excellent. This morning for instance, I had the best shave. Last night I made the best spaghetti.
I suspect you may be expecting more specific, event-driven and perhaps tangible examples. Something on a grander scale.
My military record (attached) speaks for itself.
My scientific and humanitarian accomplishments have been well documented.
I have provided links to my major gallery exhibitions, my seven most recent patents, my two award-winning documentaries and my latest novel, which coincidentally happens to be about a man coming to terms with his profound love for pastries and coffee.
I hope you'll consider me for the position.