The Ding Letter

If you've been following my sporadic posts, you may have learned that I am an aspiring novelist. In truth, I am already a novelist (with two works under my belt), but I don't feel like I can officially claim that because I have yet to land a book deal. I haven't lost hope. I've really just begun. But I learned quickly that it is a tough business, and that you will go crazy if you don't develop a thick skin. I have received a number of rejections from agents at this stage in the game. None of them were nasty. I respect the fact that not everyone will fall in love with my work, and they have to let you down somehow, right? I am sure they don't take pleasure in sending the stock "I'm not the right agent for you, but best of luck with your work" ding letter. (I do appreciate that these agents send the letter, because it is nice to cross it off the list rather than wonder if your query got lost in cyberspace.)

Yesterday's ding letter, however, brought back fond memories of my favorite ding letter of all time. While I doubt it's the norm in any business to take pleasure in drafting the DING!, in this particular case, I have no doubt that this person was sitting at his desk and laughing as he composed this masterpiece. I am sorry that this comes at the expense of my good friend from law school, whom I'll call Mr. Smith.

Here goes:

Like many diligent job seeking law students (note that I did not fit in this group), Mr. Smith set out early on in our first year to secure a summer internship for the transition from obnoxious 1L to even more obnoxious 2L. (This is a generalization, of course. Incidentally, Mr. Smith is one of the least obnoxious people I know.) Mr. Smith's search was very impressive. He visited the career services office and found contacts for dozens of law firms. He dipped into his law school loans to spring for the expensive bond paper (because these were the days before everyone had e-mail). He sent out these letters by the tens, being careful to address each to the hiring partner at the firm to which he was applying. This was the year 1996.

A few months later, the letters started pouring in. Many were the standard, "sorry we don't hire summer associates, we have already fulfilled our internship needs, etc. etc." But one special letter stood out from the rest. It was so special, in fact, that it was gingerly placed in the display case by the library in the spring of our third year, the highlight of all of the good times we had as law students. And this is what it said (more or less):

"Dear Mr. Smith,

Thank you for inquiring Mr. Jones [contact person from career services office] about a possible summer internship at [insert name of firm]. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones will not be getting back to you any time soon, seeing as how he died in 1981.

Love,

[insert name of surviving partner/associate laughing ass off while composing letter]"

It was classic.