Earlier title of this post:
"I'd be tempted to suggest that Foursquare, the Stanford Business School, and the English language go shoot themselves, but that would be missing the point."
Here's the deal. On the one hand, I rather wish I hadn't seen this article in the San Francisco Chronicle today, BUT, on the other hand, I must admit I am completely engrossed in the, uh....LIVELY conversation it has generated (and, yes, by lively I mean "Ruled By The Sort of Rage Heather Loves Reading In Web Comment Threads").
The headline was catchy: "This Email Got One Stanford Student A Huge Job At Foursquare." I was curious. Sure, I wanted to know how to net my dream gig with a single email. I wanted to send a message so completely intoxicating, Salon and MSNBC and E! Online alike would crawl all over themselves to snag me as a contributor.
Turns out the headline was a little misleading -- turns out it took eight emails. Details, details. Whatever. Meh. I can send eight.
To provide some brief back story, I'll mention that Tristan Walker was a first year student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who decided he desperately wanted to work for Foursquare. Fair enough. He tracked down the cofounders on Twitter and fired off an email. Here's what he sent:
Hey Dennis and Naveen
How’s it going? Hope all is well!
My name is Tristan Walker and Im a first year student (going into my
second year) at Stanford Business School (originally from New York).
Im a huge fan of what you both have built and excited about what you
guys have planned for FourSquare. It is an awesome , awesome service.
I would love to chat with you guys at some point, if you’re available,
about FourSquare. This year, I’m looking to help out and work
extremely hard for a startup with guys I can learn a ton from. Dennis,
with your experience at Google and the Dodgeball product, and Naveen,
with your experience at Sun and engineering in general, I know I could
learn a great deal from you both!
Before business school, I was an oil trader on Wall Street for about
two years and hated it! Moved out to the Bay/Stanford to pursue my
passion for entrepreneurship and the startup world. This past spring I
had the opportunity to work for Twitter as an intern and learned a
ton. Solidified my commitment to working at a startup that I’m
passionate about, and FourSquare is one of those startups that I
believe in.
I know you guys are probably getting inundated with internship-type
requests, but thought it’d be worth a shot! I can assure you Im humble
and Im hungry! Let me know if you’d be interested in chatting further.
I definitely look forward to hearing from you.
Stay awesome!
Tristan
@tristanwalker
I didn't edit any of this - so the obviously excluded apostrophes and other kooky, conversational bits were Tristan's and Tristan's alone.
He did get a job.
At first I was outraged (hence the "all involved should shoot themselves" title). The company actually relented and hired this kid? This sort of horrific writing (times eight) was actually successful? And if he writes this sort of crud for a job interview, how must his Stanford application package have looked? And they ADMITTED him? To GRADUATE SCHOOL?
I was angry and -- apparently -- so were all three hundred or so other folks who commented on the article. In the throes of my ire, I even fired off my own rebuttal to a commenter who suggested that "we dutiful, middle-class, college-educated folks were trained to be overly attached to the artifacts of the process and unaware of the essentials. Our schoolmarms were WRONG: Avoiding typos and me-statements, etc., etc., are not The Evidence of Professionalism and Intelligence and Worthiness. They were discourse rules. Marketing rhetoric. This guy mastered the appropriate discourse for his context."
I initially found that logic disgusting and dismissive. Didn't this commenter realize we were talking about a student in one of the nation's most prestigious MBA programs? Are we all supposed to fall on our Proper Punctuation Swords in the face of this obviously more savvy business student who knew how to work the system when the rest of us are stuck in the dark ages? How dare someone show so little regard for a complete sentence -- and how dare other people STAND UP FOR HIM?
I may have posted something that looked a little like this:
"I think the vitriol is valid. We're not so much disgusted by the fact that this kid landed his dream job via dogged determination, we're disgusted that our ivy league schools are admitting and graduating students that have an obvious and cavalier disregard for the basic tenets of written business communication.
Flagrant disregard for the basics of written English is what's irksome - basic tenets of professionalism are hardly mere marketing rhetoric.
'Appropriate discourse for his context?' Ehhhh - not so much. More like battering ram. Bug someone enough, eventually they relent -- but it would soothe our ever grammar-loving souls if the 'bugger,' as it were, at least used an apostrophe or two."
Might have. I'm not saying that's exactly what I tossed up there, but.....might have.
And then the dust settled. I took a few deep breaths, reluctantly released my death grip from the soap box and thought about this again. Tristan Walker is currently Foursquare's director of business development. According to the article, he's built partnerships with recognizable giants such as Bravo, MTV, CNN, New York Times, NBA and Starbucks. He's been successful. He wanted a job with a tech company, he snagged himself a job with a tech company.
I might be appalled by his approach, but we can't argue THAT IT WORKED. In fact, I started to wonder if he wasn't "in" on the joke. Perhaps he wanted to "dumb himself down" slightly in order to get his foot in the door. Surely, if he was so patently unable to string a basic cover letter together, he wouldn't have had the clout to snag an acceptance to Stanford, right?
RIGHT????
That's the hope to which I'm desperately clinging, anyway.
In that spirit:
Hey, Salon.com Honchos? If you're out there, I'm completely willing to abandon parentheses and ellipses entirely if it means you'll let me contribute to your Life section. Or TV section. Or Books section...or.......yeah.
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