Job Offer

Dear Natalie Patton,
I just wanted to thank you for the generous job offer you sent to my Gmail account a week ago. I know that my resume is still floating around on the World Wide Web. Granted, it's an eight-year-old resume that documents my brief technical writing career and my brush with circuit board design, but hey. I could see how you maybe found it and thought I was currently looking for gainful employment. Eight years ago. You do realize this is the tail-end of 2008? Right? You're not e-mailing me from the past, are you Natalie? Is this a time warp thing? Are you contacting me from the bridge of the Enterprise? No, wait. I just double-checked. The e-mail is dated December 1, 2008. So you are in the current time line.

Now. About the job you're offering. My blog does have the word coal in the title. But this blog isn't about coal. At all. Unless I'm making fun of some poor schmuck who has stumbled upon my blog while Googling the word "coal, " this blog is about, well, stuff. Random crap that passes through my semblance of a brain each and every day. In fact? I had wanted to call this blog Random Crap but some jackass had already taken that title. Just because I'm the granddaughter of a coal miner does not mean I know anything about coal. My closest dealings with coal and coal mines has been at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine on school field trips, the coal I would find in the backyard of my childhood home, and the brochure I received as a high school senior from the Colorado School of Mines. Of course, every high school senior in West Virginia with decent science and math grades/scores received said brochures. I'm certainly not special. But as you can see, I'm definitely not qualified to work in the coal industry, or in or around a coal mine.

Also, you mentioned that your base of operations is in Poland. You've probably noticed from my blog that I'm a stay-at-home mom. Three little ones. My husband runs a family-owned business here in suburban Atlanta. Plus? I don't speak a lick of Polish. And the fact that my father (May he rest in peace wherever he may be.) enjoyed a good "Polock" joke now and then probably, absolutely, most-likely, immediately disqualifies me. Although your job-package offer of a yearly 2-week vacation at the Polish resort of my choice is tempting, I don't think I can convince my family to move to the other side of the world in the name of King Coal. So, thanks, but no thanks.

And, in closing, I would also like to point out that you e-mailed this job offer to me from a non-work address. In fact, the name on the address is Roxanne and yet you signed it "Natalie." You also mentioned that I could get in touch with you by phone from 8AM until 6PM, Monday through Friday. Yet, no phone is listed and no time zone was noted. You gave no company Web site for me to research your company or the viability of working for you. So, I would have to say that your job offer, though generous, is a total, complete, and utter scam. And you? Are phishing for information. If you truly want to get me, create a phony company site with an official e-mail to go with it. Make sure the e-mail address name and the signature on the e-mail match. Fix your grammar. And make me an offer as a writer, not as a coal speculator. Since blogs are all about writing, maybe then I would take you seriously. And maybe then you'd have a better chance at snagging my Social Security number.

As it is you have failed miserably with your pitiful ruse and I shall now smite you and ridicule you for all the world to see. Have a good day Natalie Patton (patton.natalie.nrinc@gmail.com) or Roxanne L (RoxanneeLiukkosuv770@live.com), whatever your name is. Hope you rot in that special circle of hell dedicated to spammers and phishers alike. Meanwhile, I will send my resume, for the position of safety diver, to the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, Texas and hope like heck they don't have me arrested for stalking, since they must have like 90 copies of the damned thing.

Sincerely,
Coal Miner "I reply to Nigerian Phishers with large quantities of the word fuck so don't even start with me" Heather