SATIRE: The only application we’ve received for life editor

What+in+life+editor+application%3F+Stephen+Armica%2C+an+interesting+guy%2C+gets+psyched+to+turn+in+his+cover+letter+to+The+Oakland+Post.+

Nowshin Chowdhury

What in life editor application? Stephen Armica, an interesting guy, gets psyched to turn in his cover letter to The Oakland Post.

Come on, guys. We offer up a great job with good pay and fun work and we get one application. One.

Now I know you guys can be busy sometimes, and that’s fine too. But when we get nothing but an application like this one, we really can’t help feeling bad about ourselves.

Help us out. Don’t leave us alone in a room with no one but the guy who wrote this cover letter, Stephen Armica:

What’s good, y’all? I’m up in here for one good-ass reason. I wanna be an editor. Now I don’t give a flying frick how I end up getting this sweet-ass position. Hell, I don’t even care if you guys pay me. I just love editing shit. I’m an editing addict. I literally go to a group every Friday to talk about my screwed-up feelings about editing journalistic works. 

Now, am I a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor? Not yet. Have I even won any awards for writing? Not since high school. Which, if you really think about it, isn’t that long ago. 

You wanna talk about qualifications? I’ve been a staff writer at another newspaper for as long as I can remember; mostly because I recently went sober. But from what people have told me, I’ve been a staff writer for about a year now.

I spent most of my time at that newspaper binge-writing whatever editors asked of me. And I did a damn good job doing whatever people told me to do.

So why do I want to leave that kush job for something harder? One reason: being a mother-loving editor. One of my fetishes is just editing other people’s work, finding mistakes and maintaining the tone of a work – Oh Christ! It just gets me going!

Other qualifications? I don’t have any! That’s how goddamn focused I am at my other job. I keep my nose to the keyboard, and when somebody picks my head up telling me I’ve won some dumb participation trophy, I punch them in right in the face.

Now, I’m talking pretty frankly about this drug problem I had. You might be asking yourself, “Why the hell is this idiot telling me about his drug escapades like he knows he’s gonna get the job?” Well, dear reader, I’m that good at what I do. I used to chug a fifth of whiskey next to my then-coffee-sipping boss and the most he had the balls to tell me, the progeny of Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, was “You rascal, you.”

Let me just ask the next question for you. “Exactly how good are you, Stephen? You’re makin’ some pretty big claims here, but can you back your shit up?” Thank you for this excellent question. I couldn’t have asked that more eloquently myself. I have enclosed work samples just for you. They are literally yours to do whatever you want with. You wanna read them? Great! You wanna take them into your bathroom and use them as toilet paper? Uhh . . .  cool. Like I said, they’re yours . . .

So you like what you see? You want a little piece of this action? Have I got some contact info for you? Call me on my cell if you wanna talk about editing or if you wanna make me the happiest man in the world by calling me Mr. Oakland Post Life Editor, then my life would be complete.”

At least he’s a good writer.