Dear Applicant

Dear Applicant

We thank you for your application but regret to inform you that, after careful consideration and owing to the quality of other submissions, we will not be taking your application any further.

Congratulations. You are a loser. We wish to clarify that we intend this as a term of respect and deference. You are a person who has tried. You are not someone who has found an excuse to avoid trying. You have begun on the journey towards some goal, whether recently or a long time ago.

Perhaps you thought that this last effort might mark the end of that journey. If so, we understand your disappointment. We have been there, climbing ever upwards, thinking that we had spied the peak, only to find that there was much, much further still to go.

We hope that you will keep trying, despite your disappointment, sense of hurt, weariness, wariness, and fervent wish for the journey to be over, a journey furthermore which you may now wish you had never begun.

Due to the quantity of submissions received, unfortunately we cannot comment on specific applications. Instead we encourage you to seek the council of wise friends and helpers, who may be able to add to your sight of the onward journey.

In any case, we encourage you to put the boots back on your blistered feet and continue the climb.

Although we, as possessors of power and status, are winners, you have our undying respect for your efforts, past, present and future. Yours is the struggle of which all great victories are made, including our own.

Yours in comradeship,

The Company