6 ms·

Hunter S. Thompson's brutally honest Canadian job request

138 points by rbxbx 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- acangiano 16y ago
  Hint: Despite its name, Hacker News isn't really about news. It's about discussing content that is relevant to the interests of our community. This usually mean fresh business and technical articles, but that's not necessarily the case.
  - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
    Hiring practices of course being totally irrelevant to the vast majority of HN readers
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      sarcasm? you really think the majority of HN users are startup founders?
      - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        No - but many of them have dreamed about getting jobs in vancouver
        jarin 16y ago
        One thing I've learned from my brief time on HN is that HNers don't like humor. I couldn't read your original comment, but I voted this up because this was a funny response.
        scott_s 16y ago
        It's not that we don't like humor. Most people just aren't as funny as they think they are.
        jarin 16y ago
        Haha, fair enough.
        Psyonic 16y ago
        On the contrary, I love a good joke! I think the problem is sometimes its difficult to differentiate sarcasm, trolling, and idiocy without knowing the person or vocal cues. The OP wrote the comment on a new account with absolutely no history to guide me. What should be my default take?
        kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        sorry - I create a new account each day. Too much traceable info online for the industry I work in.
        Psyonic 16y ago
        No worries. I'm not too concerned about my karma, though -4 seems harsh for not catching a joke.
        Psyonic 16y ago
        Sarcasm can be hard to interpret on the interwebs from strangers with no context. Clever response though!
  - meatsock 16y ago
    Well if you liked this article I can't help but suggest The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1) -- more depth & background than any sane person needs to have regarding HST. This letter was published in same in 1998.
jacquesm 16y ago
Hilarious, now, the one thing I can't get out of my head is the question if he got the job or not?
- niyazpk 16y ago
  There is no sign in his Wikipedia page that he worked for the Sun. So probably not.
  - ursablanco 16y ago
    The Sun has a long history of establishment suck-holing and sucking-in-general that continues into the foreseeable future. There's not a chance that Thompson worked there.
jmspring 16y ago
I think the letter is a great example of how I would like to see resume submissions / job requests written. It gets to the point pretty directly in "this is how I think I can help" and "here is the type of environment I am/am not interested in". Instead, a lot of time these days is wasted in "here is my resume", phone back and forth with some HR person, phone with the hiring person, if in person, then you may or may not get a good feel for the work environment. If only it were possible for both sides to be frank about "this is what we do" and "this is what we want".
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Of course it's possible -- people just don't do it, and I don't know why. I recently needed to bring someone on to take over the basics on a bunch of my web projects, because I'm overcommitted, as usual, and trying not to be. I tried a local resource first, and then I went to Craigslist, which has worked out well for me in the past. My ad was simple and direct; it spelled out what we were about, what we were looking for, and what we could offer, and then it had instructions: if someone wanted the job, they needed to solve an easy puzzle, not send a resume, and instead send about a paragraph talking about their skills and experience. It worked out great. As far as I'm concerned, resumes are next-to-worthless. I don't really care who you've worked for or what you've done for them. I'm not going to call them and see if they say good things about you. I just want to know if you can figure things out and communicate well. During the interview, I'll sort out whether or not you actually know what you're doing.
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    Did you get many applications from people who hadn't read your instructions?
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      I'm going to take a shot at: yes. We tried this approach too, and it worked great. But for every correct application we got two or three wrong ones. We emailed them explaining the problem, to give them a chance, and only one replied - to tell me I was being unfair not to consider him....
dmix 16y ago
Hunter seemed to be heavily inspired by Hemingway at this point in his career. When Hemingway started out, he worked for the Toronto Star (another Canadian newspaper). He wrote his first novel during this time: The Sun Also Rises, about expatriates living in Paris. Hunter decided to apply to a Canadian newspaper after admittingly not being familiar with it. Then not long after he wrote his first novel - The Rum Diary - which was heavily inspired by Hemingway's first, about expatriates living in Puerto Rico.
- gregory80 16y ago
  hmm, I'm not really sure he was inspired by Hemingway in any meaningful way. Perhaps purely by coincidence is that true, with Hemingway winning the nobel prize a few years before this letter was mailed, and thompson actively copied heminway's work, as well as several other novels, in order to learn more about writing style, though he never published any plagiarized work. Hemingway was a traditional, fiction, novelist and focused on his characters. Thompson defied (edit: was defined, oops) 100s of years of traditional writing (both novel and newspaper) by inventing so called 'gonzo' journalism. The man openly included his own personal life directly into all of this work, including this letter. He also, never worked in canada. While I hold both men in high regard, the only parallels between these two men are the facts they both were journalists and authors (and drunks), since that's true for almost every published journalist, it's a thin comparison at best.
  - rbxbx 16y ago
    Don't forget the fact that they both took their own lives with a shotgun to the head. Also, if you consult HST's wikipedia entry, you'll notice Hemingway come up several times (and in fairly significant ways). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson
    - Psyonic 16y ago
      Best source I can find say's he used a .45 caliber pistol, you know otherwise? http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article3602025.ece http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/rela... No disagreement on the similarity between those two, however.
apu 16y ago
2 other awesome letters he wrote: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/07/your-work-was-inadequate-and.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/07/your-work-was-inadequat... http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/okay-you-lazy-bitch.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/okay-you-lazy-bitch.htm...
awt 16y ago
I remember once telling an HR person at M$FT when interviewing for an internship ( 12 years ago ) that "I don't like to be micromanaged." I've since learned to be less forthright in my job interviews.
- dasht 16y ago
  In other words, you do (it turns out) like being micromanaged. :-)
  - awt 16y ago
    Not really. But I don't think that most people interviewing a candidate would be pleased to hear something like that brought up by an interviewee. Perhaps you would, but I think most people would get the impression that someone who brought that up in an interview would be difficult to work with, even if their management style did not include "micro-managing."
    - mseebach 16y ago
      There's a fine line between being honest about what you like and don't like, and then voicing an expectation that a certain workplace has certain negative properties. In other words, there's probably a million other thing you also don't like, why are you bringing up micromanagement?
pacemkr 16y ago
I don't know anything about Thompson as a person, so I'll refrain from judging. I'm only glad that I'm finally able to put a term to what I despise most about journalism in our country (U.S.), evidently the term is "Gonzo journalism." "Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered." --Wikipedia I don't care about what the journalist thinks or feels. I'm an adult and I can form my own opinion, based on my values. Give me the facts! Just please give me the damn facts, I beg you! I don't need the anchor to "show attitude" and give me "what if" scenarios to wiggle my imagination while bending the facts in the process. Currently, this technique is king among the major news networks in the U.S. It makes them completely incapable of reporting the news in its natural form: facts. It is unethical and amoral for journalists to swing public opinion with eloquent narrative that favors "style over accuracy."
- helium 16y ago
  Yeah, you obviously don't have the slightest clue what Gonzo is. Doing a quick scan on Wikipedia will not help you understand something. Read a few of Thompsons' works and then decide if you really would compare it to the current style of journalism that's prevalent in the west.
- johnswamps 16y ago
  You're misunderstanding what gonzo journalism is. I encourage you to read some of Thompson's work.
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    If you're intending to follow this advice, don't start with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's a great story, but doesn't really capture gonzo journalism. Gonzo, perhaps, but not journalism. Hell's Angels or Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972) are much better starting points.
    - pacemkr 16y ago
      Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail looks interesting. Thanks.
spiffworks 16y ago
I have always hated writing bullshit cover letters. Now I just write short, honest introductions. As an aside, should I make a plain text version of my resume and put it in the body of the email itself? Or is a pdf attachment enough? I figure the overhead of having to download and open the pdf could be overcome by putting the resume in the body itself. Thoughts?
- cubicle67 16y ago
  Last resume I wrote was in html (not on a site, I'd just attach a html file). It served two purposes; gave people a chance to see what my html crafting was like, and allowed me to include a number of links to previous sites, projects etc I've always included a pdf version, and I don't think I've ever submitted a resume in .doc format
  - semanticist 16y ago
    90% of CVs are in .doc format, at least the ones going through recruitment agencies in the EU. From what I've seen the numbers for the US should be similar, but I don't think my experience there constitutes a large enough sample. (Day job is at a company providing CV parsing to recruiters.)
Mrdev4 16y ago
My Favorite http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/graffiti/crook....
gambhir 16y ago
I did part of my MA on Thompson and even reviewed a collection of letters for Canada's National Post newspaper years ago (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg57692.html http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg57692.h...). I don't know if people will read anything but Vegas in 100 years, but his style and humour made him a standout in his time. He was influenced by Hemingway but he also typed out The Great Gatsby to try pick up on the style. Another strong stylistic influence was Revelations. A great letter that brought it all back.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

138 points by rbxbx 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

acangiano 16y ago
Hint: Despite its name, Hacker News isn't really about news. It's about discussing content that is relevant to the interests of our community. This usually mean fresh business and technical articles, but that's not necessarily the case.
- kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
  Hiring practices of course being totally irrelevant to the vast majority of HN readers
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    sarcasm? you really think the majority of HN users are startup founders?
    - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
      No - but many of them have dreamed about getting jobs in vancouver
      - jarin 16y ago
        One thing I've learned from my brief time on HN is that HNers don't like humor. I couldn't read your original comment, but I voted this up because this was a funny response.
        scott_s 16y ago
        It's not that we don't like humor. Most people just aren't as funny as they think they are.
        jarin 16y ago
        Haha, fair enough.
        Psyonic 16y ago
        On the contrary, I love a good joke! I think the problem is sometimes its difficult to differentiate sarcasm, trolling, and idiocy without knowing the person or vocal cues. The OP wrote the comment on a new account with absolutely no history to guide me. What should be my default take?
        kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        sorry - I create a new account each day. Too much traceable info online for the industry I work in.
        Psyonic 16y ago
        No worries. I'm not too concerned about my karma, though -4 seems harsh for not catching a joke.
      - Psyonic 16y ago
        Sarcasm can be hard to interpret on the interwebs from strangers with no context. Clever response though!
- meatsock 16y ago
  Well if you liked this article I can't help but suggest The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Vol. 1) -- more depth & background than any sane person needs to have regarding HST. This letter was published in same in 1998.

jacquesm 16y ago

Hilarious, now, the one thing I can't get out of my head is the question if he got the job or not?

niyazpk 16y ago
There is no sign in his Wikipedia page that he worked for the Sun. So probably not.
- ursablanco 16y ago
  The Sun has a long history of establishment suck-holing and sucking-in-general that continues into the foreseeable future. There's not a chance that Thompson worked there.

jmspring 16y ago

I think the letter is a great example of how I would like to see resume submissions / job requests written. It gets to the point pretty directly in "this is how I think I can help" and "here is the type of environment I am/am not interested in". Instead, a lot of time these days is wasted in "here is my resume", phone back and forth with some HR person, phone with the hiring person, if in person, then you may or may not get a good feel for the work environment. If only it were possible for both sides to be frank about "this is what we do" and "this is what we want".

thaumaturgy 16y ago
Of course it's possible -- people just don't do it, and I don't know why. I recently needed to bring someone on to take over the basics on a bunch of my web projects, because I'm overcommitted, as usual, and trying not to be. I tried a local resource first, and then I went to Craigslist, which has worked out well for me in the past. My ad was simple and direct; it spelled out what we were about, what we were looking for, and what we could offer, and then it had instructions: if someone wanted the job, they needed to solve an easy puzzle, not send a resume, and instead send about a paragraph talking about their skills and experience. It worked out great. As far as I'm concerned, resumes are next-to-worthless. I don't really care who you've worked for or what you've done for them. I'm not going to call them and see if they say good things about you. I just want to know if you can figure things out and communicate well. During the interview, I'll sort out whether or not you actually know what you're doing.
- cubicle67 16y ago
  Did you get many applications from people who hadn't read your instructions?
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    I'm going to take a shot at: yes. We tried this approach too, and it worked great. But for every correct application we got two or three wrong ones. We emailed them explaining the problem, to give them a chance, and only one replied - to tell me I was being unfair not to consider him....

dmix 16y ago

Hunter seemed to be heavily inspired by Hemingway at this point in his career. When Hemingway started out, he worked for the Toronto Star (another Canadian newspaper). He wrote his first novel during this time: The Sun Also Rises, about expatriates living in Paris. Hunter decided to apply to a Canadian newspaper after admittingly not being familiar with it. Then not long after he wrote his first novel - The Rum Diary - which was heavily inspired by Hemingway's first, about expatriates living in Puerto Rico.

gregory80 16y ago
hmm, I'm not really sure he was inspired by Hemingway in any meaningful way. Perhaps purely by coincidence is that true, with Hemingway winning the nobel prize a few years before this letter was mailed, and thompson actively copied heminway's work, as well as several other novels, in order to learn more about writing style, though he never published any plagiarized work. Hemingway was a traditional, fiction, novelist and focused on his characters. Thompson defied (edit: was defined, oops) 100s of years of traditional writing (both novel and newspaper) by inventing so called 'gonzo' journalism. The man openly included his own personal life directly into all of this work, including this letter. He also, never worked in canada. While I hold both men in high regard, the only parallels between these two men are the facts they both were journalists and authors (and drunks), since that's true for almost every published journalist, it's a thin comparison at best.
- rbxbx 16y ago
  Don't forget the fact that they both took their own lives with a shotgun to the head. Also, if you consult HST's wikipedia entry, you'll notice Hemingway come up several times (and in fairly significant ways). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    Best source I can find say's he used a .45 caliber pistol, you know otherwise? http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article3602025.ece http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/rela... No disagreement on the similarity between those two, however.

apu 16y ago

2 other awesome letters he wrote: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/07/your-work-was-inadequate-and.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/07/your-work-was-inadequat... http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/okay-you-lazy-bitch.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/okay-you-lazy-bitch.htm...

awt 16y ago

I remember once telling an HR person at M$FT when interviewing for an internship ( 12 years ago ) that "I don't like to be micromanaged." I've since learned to be less forthright in my job interviews.

dasht 16y ago
In other words, you do (it turns out) like being micromanaged. :-)
- awt 16y ago
  Not really. But I don't think that most people interviewing a candidate would be pleased to hear something like that brought up by an interviewee. Perhaps you would, but I think most people would get the impression that someone who brought that up in an interview would be difficult to work with, even if their management style did not include "micro-managing."
  - mseebach 16y ago
    There's a fine line between being honest about what you like and don't like, and then voicing an expectation that a certain workplace has certain negative properties. In other words, there's probably a million other thing you also don't like, why are you bringing up micromanagement?

pacemkr 16y ago

I don't know anything about Thompson as a person, so I'll refrain from judging. I'm only glad that I'm finally able to put a term to what I despise most about journalism in our country (U.S.), evidently the term is "Gonzo journalism." "Gonzo journalism tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered." --Wikipedia I don't care about what the journalist thinks or feels. I'm an adult and I can form my own opinion, based on my values. Give me the facts! Just please give me the damn facts, I beg you! I don't need the anchor to "show attitude" and give me "what if" scenarios to wiggle my imagination while bending the facts in the process. Currently, this technique is king among the major news networks in the U.S. It makes them completely incapable of reporting the news in its natural form: facts. It is unethical and amoral for journalists to swing public opinion with eloquent narrative that favors "style over accuracy."

helium 16y ago
Yeah, you obviously don't have the slightest clue what Gonzo is. Doing a quick scan on Wikipedia will not help you understand something. Read a few of Thompsons' works and then decide if you really would compare it to the current style of journalism that's prevalent in the west.
johnswamps 16y ago
You're misunderstanding what gonzo journalism is. I encourage you to read some of Thompson's work.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  If you're intending to follow this advice, don't start with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's a great story, but doesn't really capture gonzo journalism. Gonzo, perhaps, but not journalism. Hell's Angels or Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972) are much better starting points.
  - pacemkr 16y ago
    Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail looks interesting. Thanks.

spiffworks 16y ago

I have always hated writing bullshit cover letters. Now I just write short, honest introductions. As an aside, should I make a plain text version of my resume and put it in the body of the email itself? Or is a pdf attachment enough? I figure the overhead of having to download and open the pdf could be overcome by putting the resume in the body itself. Thoughts?

cubicle67 16y ago
Last resume I wrote was in html (not on a site, I'd just attach a html file). It served two purposes; gave people a chance to see what my html crafting was like, and allowed me to include a number of links to previous sites, projects etc I've always included a pdf version, and I don't think I've ever submitted a resume in .doc format
- semanticist 16y ago
  90% of CVs are in .doc format, at least the ones going through recruitment agencies in the EU. From what I've seen the numbers for the US should be similar, but I don't think my experience there constitutes a large enough sample. (Day job is at a company providing CV parsing to recruiters.)

Mrdev4 16y ago

My Favorite http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/graffiti/crook....

gambhir 16y ago

I did part of my MA on Thompson and even reviewed a collection of letters for Canada's National Post newspaper years ago (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg57692.html http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg57692.h...). I don't know if people will read anything but Vegas in 100 years, but his style and humour made him a standout in his time. He was influenced by Hemingway but he also typed out The Great Gatsby to try pick up on the style. Another strong stylistic influence was Revelations. A great letter that brought it all back.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]