Dear Vice
I am in the unenviable position of having to write to you to ask for work. Needs must when the devil cracks the whip, any port in a storm etc… I have read your publication over the years and apart from the many pictures of young girls breasts have never really cared for it but after ten years of being a writer it has finally become apparent to me that writing, enjoyment and getting paid are not mutually exclusive. I wish I’d realised that when I was comedy editor of the Guardian Guide, as I might not now be living in a level of squalor that Charles Dickens could not even articulate.
Before I made my home in the gutter I was arrogant and deluded enough to set up and edit the UK’s longest running nationally distributed comedy magazine The Fix. As a business proposition it was about as financially appealing as investing in one of Duncan Bannatyne’s turds but was critically lauded and at it’s peak read by about 20,000 people. I interviewed the great and the good of the comedy world from Louis CK to Michael Barrymore and got myself into thousands of pounds worth of debt in the process much to the despair of my parents and landlord at the time.
Mainly I am looking to do a regular column where I write about world affairs juxtaposed with the sorry plight of my existence. However. I have experience in the many disciplines of writing and can turn my hand to anything you may see fit to employ me to do. Ideally I’d like to get paid for the privilege but luckily for you my self esteem has been so ravaged by years of debt and rejection that I’d probably do it for free in the vain hope that it would somehow raise my profile and eventually lead to paid work.
I can get you some references for my work but I’m pretty sure they will mainly say I am unreliable, difficult to work with and I can’t write. If I didn’t conduct most of my business affairs from an Internet café I’d be in a much stronger position to disagree with them so I’ll just have to hope the attached examples of my writing will stir some sense of pity inside of you.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this self-indulgent drivel if you want any more I’ve got plenty.
Harry
As suspected the editor of Vice has no sense of humor, as seen in his reply.
Either i can’t understand you - which doesn’t bode well for your writing skills; or you have never had any time for the publication - which doesn’t bode well for your chances of getting a gig here.
Yet to hear back following my last correspondence
Hi Alex
Many thanks for your swift reply. Obviously I totally appreciate your strong moral stance, the magazine has clearly been very successful by employing people who like the publication so it makes total sense to continue to plough that furrow. It’s decisions like this that make you the executive editor of a successful magazine and me a man who waits outside Starbucks when it closes to get free sandwiches.
I hope that you will keep my letter on file and notify me in the future if there is ever any change to your employment policy.
All the best and thanks for your time.
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