Crespo and Hartsell

Dear Sir:

You hold in your hands a letter. Not an email, not a Facebook message, not a DM. An actual, physical missive. It is an epistle, of the ilk our fathers and their fathers once wrote. In short, this is a real “brick and mortar” affair you are looking at.

But this is not just any letter, no. It is a thank you* letter. You may have never received one before, but back when I first began job hunting – in between the Iraq wars as they say – writing, folding, sealing and stamping one of these beauties was a post-interview moral imperative.

While I appreciate and wholeheartedly agree with your desire to hire me on the spot, I’m pleased that you have taken my advice and opted to give yourself more time to mull it over. Hiring an employee is a unique experience that few get to enjoy. Don’t rush through it. Savor it. As you fall asleep tonight, think to yourself, “I am an employer. I shall employ a fellow human being. I am a force for good.” If you fully live every moment of this journey, the destination, applying your signature to that offer letter, will be so much the sweeter.

Let us not chide ourselves for perpetuating a charade, continuing about our day as if we both do not already know that our future working relationship is written in the stars. We are athletes of imagination and as such, we must remain limber and at the ready.

When we speak tomorrow to settle the formalities, we will do so knowing that “being in the moment” is just one of many arrows in our respective quivers.

Thank you for your time today, thank you for your enthusiasm, and thank you for what I know will be your steady leadership for many days after this. And if I may be so bold as to say it, you’re welcome.

Sincerely,

Carol R. Hartsell

* I hesitated to use italics at first for fear they would take away from the Jeffersonian simplicity of this form of communication, but then I threw caution to the wind and said to myself, “Critical moments call for emphasis. Let’s not sniff at the tools God has given us.”

1. Grit: Coach Ritchie and the Texas A&R Punisher’s 2013 Championship Season

2. Mr. Grit Goes To Washington…State: The Harpoon’s Northwest Conference Title Year with Coach Fremont

3. Redifining Grit: Coach Halberdsman Shares the Ups and Downs of the Ohio College of the Valley Cannonballs’ 2013 Season

4. Shear Grit: Inside Coach Porter’s 2013 Championship Penn U. College Ravenous Cougars Line-Up 

5. One Man’s Struggle To Instill Grit: A Portrait of Coach Tone and His Delaware State Decapitators’ 2013 Season

6. Sewing the Seeds of Grit: Coach Dremp and the Rhode Island School for Botany Gut Wounds Share Their Story

7. Grit, A Four-Letter Word: How Coach Barbari and the Sacramento College of the Arts’ Africanized Bees Bucked The Odds

8. I Grit, You Grit, We All Grit for Championships: Coach Antwerpe and the Union of Charleston Area Accredited College Cannibals’ 2013 “Season of Dreamin’”

9. In the Grit of Time: Coach Spellman’s Journey to the Top with His Pensacola College of Marine Biology Shivs

10. Grit and Bear It: How Coach Douglas and The Underdog Champs, The Detroit Seminary Inquisitors, Took On Their Division

11. What’s Grit Got To Do Got To Do With It?: “Everything” According to Coach Greely and His Massachusetts Scaphists, Who It Might Be Mentioned, Won in 2013

12. G-R-I-T Spells…Coach Parker and His 2013 Reno State U. Staplegun Accidents’ Championship Year

13. Doing it with Grit: Coach Lampanelli’s Theories on Life, Marriage, and Getting the DesMoines University Scythes To Win Win Win!

14. Now, that’s Grit!: How Coach Fryman Took the Alabama Community College Cruise Missiles From Zeros to Heros…By Using Grit

15. Grrrrrrrrit!: Coach Gauwer Expounds On Why His Louisiana State Tech Stabbies Out-Classed, Out-Shined, and Out-Gritted the Competition (Who Were Notable Only For Their Lack of Grit)

16. The Gritman Cometh: How Coach Hillerdy’s Kansas City College University Severed Carotids Outdid The Competition and Redefined College Polo Forever…Through Grit, Mind You.

17. The Grit Who Stole Christmas (and the Division Title): Coach Yardley’s Pueblo Vivisectors and Their 2013 Championship Season Which Was Filled With Grit

18. If I Were Grit and Grit Were A Number, I’d Be 1 X 10 (42): Coach Coachly and the Aurora State Testicle Electrocutors’ Successful Pro-Grit Policies On The Field

19. Grittily We Did It: The Story of Coach Bellfry and His Arizona Institute Disembowelers’ 2013 Championship Season Which Was Simply Just Filled With Gobs and Gobs of Grit

20. The Story of Grit: The Miami Air-Born Pathogens’s 2013 Championship Come Back and How Coach Villman Did It (The Answer Is “He Did It With Grit” But A Similarly Worded Title Had Already Been Published)

21. Fuck You! I’m Grittier: Coach Potter Gets Sued Simply For Assessing Honestly the State of Grit in College Sports So Fuck You Again You Pussies

22. My Life Is A Vapid Enterprise Characterized Mostly By The Shallow Pursuit of Winning My College Sports Division: Why Coach Lithium Committed Suicide

The Monsters of Jaundice

Stül

Vulva Patrol

The Ergonomiks

It’s All Workin Out For the Best

Zest 4 Lyf

Megan’s Broken Law

Enemies of Pollen

Butterfly Dreams, featuring the Sequined Pajama Singers