Handwritten Thank-you Note BLARG!

Here’s a hilarious job hunt BLARG! that kept me laughing at myself for a few days.

I recently interviewed at a really cool arts-based community outreach organization in Southie called Medicine Wheel Productions. I was absolutely smitten with the office, where each room, wall, and angle had a different art installation. They even had a meditation room with dark blue walls, polished stones on the floor, hand-pounded copper walkways and benches, and an illuminated reflecting pool with running water to soothe the senses. It was a WORLD away from my previous job in a fast-paced restaurant where I could go 10 hours without thinking, eating, or relieving myself and not even know it because I was too busy making things happen. The atmosphere at MWP was so stimulating, and the mission was one I could fully endorse.

Unfortunately, I bombed the interview. I knew it the second it ended and I realized it only lasted forty-five minutes even though the interviewer told me to prepare for two hours. My only hope was to redeem myself with a killer thank-you note.

I’m one of those people who think sending thank-you notes is a dying art. The importance of a thank-you note was instilled in me at a very young age by my grandmother. She had eight children and nineteen grandchildren, and after Christmas, she could always keep track of who sent a note of acknowledgement for her presents. Same with high school graduations. I picked up the value from her, so I was confident that my letter to MWP would seal the deal.

I chose a very special card to send. It was handmade paper with a hand-pressed image of a Celtic animal inked onto the front. I got it at a street market in Galway, Ireland in 2009 and have been saving it for a very special occasion. Since MWP has close ties to Ireland, and since they can appreciate the beauty of a handmade card, I thought this was the perfect occasion to send it out. 

I worked out the content in a Word document, then practiced writing it out three times on a piece of paper to make sure it would fit and to tone down my (somewhat sloppy) penmanship.

Next it came time to finally ink my words onto the paper. I wrote very slowly, reading off of my practice sheets, and transcribing each letter and phrase with care. When I was all done, I read it over to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes.

BLARG!

Of course I made a mistake. Smack in the middle of the letter, I fudged the line “I am confident I will be a success in the development role at MWP.” My freaking boyfriend (yeah, I’m blaming him) woke up in the middle of my writing, distracted me, and I copied the line down as “I am confident I am confident I will be a success…”

Double BLARG!

I had to figure out what to do. I couldn’t white-out the error because the card is off-white, handmade paper. I didn’t want to trash it because it is a very special card and I have been saving it for over three years. So I considered how to work with what I had.

Earlier in the card, I wrote how empowered and motivated the atmosphere at the office made me feel. Could I exude enthusiasm by adding an exclamation point? “I am confident! I am confident I will be a success…”?

Should I have crossed off the extra “I am confident” and hoped it didn’t look too unprofessional? Or used the white-out and come up with a new line?

In the end, I chose to try to squeeze in an extra sentence. Now the letter reads “I am confident I will fit in at MWP. Also, I am confident I will be a success…”

In retrospect, I probably should have ditched the whole thing and sent a thank-you email instead. I looked on the internet and found that it is appropriate to use emails instead of handwritten notes if the hiring process is going to be very quick (in this case, she told me a week). But honestly, I was already feeling like I wasn’t going to hear back, so I just went with it. I’m a “bare it all” kind of person, and if you can’t appreciate me for what I am, I probably shouldn’t be working with you anyway.