Nima Yousefi's Equinox of Insanity

The Single Greatest Letter I Have Ever Read

Once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you come across a work of literary genius so profound and moving that it rocks you to the very core of your being. I had that experience on a week and a half ago, when one of the guys from the Core Biosciences delivery service came by and dropped off a letter of mythical proportions. This is the last letter you’re ever going to have to read.

A scan of the letter can be found here. I’ve redacted the names and contact information to protect the innocent.

What follows is the content of the letter, with commentary added by me. I changed the names below, but left them in place for narrative purposes.

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This is a story about a crime of intolerable cruelty.

This is a textbook perfect first sentence to a letter. Self referential? Check. Overly dramatic? Check. Random Cohen Brothers movie reference? Awesome.

Plus he gets extra points for dispensing with the salutation entirely.

It might not fit the legal definition of a crime, but then what exactly do you call an indefensibly reprehensible action that irreparably demolishes a human being’s very spirit?

I call it a fun time. Thanks for asking.

There is right and there is wrong. What happened to Bob is as wrong as feeding hungry children is right.

He’s already pulling the “hungry children” card? Talk about shock and awe.

They fired him, but saying simply that does not begin to describe a tenth of the inhumanity inherent in his dismissal.

So if less than 10% of the inhumanity is represented by the previous statement, then that means there’s still 90% more inhumanity on the way. Prepare yourself accordingly.

Bob was our on-campus delivery guy. Many of you know him. He brings you your products with a smile reared from true joy, justly proud that he had risen from St. Louis poverty to a position in society of such esteem that he was privileged to spend a few moments of his day in the presence of all of you fine people.

I am a fine person. Superficial compliment gladly accepted.

He is a devout Christian, and possibly the most blessed-hearted individual I have ever known.

So he’s got a smile reared from true joy and a blessed-heart. Sounds like a douche.

As I drove him home after we got the news, literally quivering with rage, I listened to him speak.

Driving while quivering is generally ill-advised. FYI.

He does not understand why this happened, but he had seemed to reach enough of a complacency to be far calmer than I was.

So he wasn’t quivering? Then he should have taken your keys from you and driven you two home himself. Friends don’t let friends drive quiveringly.

All he said was to tell everybody at Core that he loves them. Needless to say, he will be sorely missed. Al said he feels like his family is being tom apart. We haven’t gotten to the bad part yet.

I don’t know who Al is, but if “the bad part” is still to come I can’t wait.

Most of you remember our former sales manager, Conchita, another legendarily wonderful person whom I am humbled to call my friend.

You mean legendary as in Paul Bunyan or legendary like the red dude from Legend? Just wondering, cause I don’t actually remember her.

As she was preparing for a months-long around-the-world trip followed by taking up residence in Spain, in other words, when she had ten million other things on her mind, she made it her final mission at Core to get Bob hired on permanently.

That’s not a big deal. Tom Cruise stole a NOC list from inside Langley. That was a awesome final mission. Plus he did two more missions after that. In her face!

I cannot bear to imagine what this news would put her through, and can only hope that she does not find out that the organization she worked tirelessly to build from scratch is crumbling.

She can subscribe to my blog at http://equinox-of-insanity.com/feed

On many occasions, Bob asked all of us to join him at his church on one of their Thursday night celebrations of life.

Celebrations of life? Do Christians do that? Sounds kind of fruity.

I never went. None of us did.

Dicks.

Except Conchita.

Hmmm…

She knew that Bob was an amazing person and that it would mean the world to him for her to show up there, even as she was preparing to throw her entire life into hurtling chaos!

Translation: she and Bob were fucking.

Bob worked harder than anyone, he respects and loves everyone and would never do harm to another living creature. He worked here for almost two years. For more than a year, he worked for eight dollars an hour, taking two buses to and from work every single day. For all of that time, not once did I see him with enough money for lunch, and he wouldn’t even eat at our monthly catered lunch meetings because he didn’t want his stomach to think it was going to get hooked up like that too often.

So this guy was starving, but refused food. Like Ghandi. And he rode the bus a lot. Like Rosa Parks. The only way Bob could be any more awesome is if there’s some way to liken him to an Italian movie actor.

He did everything they asked him to do,

It’s called a job. That’s how it works.

and he made no more mistakes than anyone else. He did not ever, not once, make a mistake that cost Core even a penny.

I’m sure you have bank statements to verify this assertion.

Once he became permanent this past December, and he began to reap the rewards of a significant income boost, he blossomed and branched out far and wide like never before.

What is he, a fucking tree?

He has dedicated himself to Muay Thai training, paying for almost-daily lessons with the money he worked so hard for and earned so honestly.

Because we all know the very first thing blessed-hearted joy-reared starvingly devout Christians do with the money they earn is take Muay Thai lessons. Obviously.

He’s been asking tons of girls for dates, and it never gets him down if they turn him down.

I, too, prescribe to the school of thought that dictates describing women by weight. For example, today I hung out with 250 lbs of women.

He was making use of his UCSD-provided benefits to have some dental work done.

Do you guys see the author’s genius here? He spins a vast and beautiful web of words, and brings it all around together into a cohesive unit. Why does he need dental work? All the Muay Thai. Why did several tons of women turn down his sexual advances? Bad teeth. It’s like the friggin’ “Da Vinci Code”, except not complete shit.

All of this they gaveth, and all of this they taketh away.

OMG! You bastards!

I hope I am doing well at explaining that there is such unyielding mercilessness in giving someone such gifts and then tearing them away with not the slightest signal or warning!

Yes, yes, the gift of Muay Thai is a powerful, powerful gift, and not one to be taketh away lightly.

It was like the part in “Goodfellas” when they tell Joe Pesci he’s about to become an official member of the Italian mob, only they lead him into an empty room and shoot him in the back of the head.

Well there you go. Bob is the most awesome person ever.

They smiled at him for two years and never failed to tell him he was doing a good job. You must understand these facts:

• There were 0 customer complaints about Bob.
• Nobody working at Core had any problems with Bob.
• No member of management ever told Bob he had done anything wrong. He was not routinely given instructions for improvement because there were very few flaws in his work.

It occurs to me now that a bulleted list of Bob’s spectacularity would have probably been a more efficient way of communicating said spectacularity.

• Ghandi-esque
• Muay Thai enthusiast
• Life celebrator

He was not given two weeks notice, or even a moment’s notice. We had a meeting Wednesday morning during which our manager Donald Rumsfeld told us we were all doing a great job, and then they let him go out and make the morning deliveries, and then they called him upstairs, handed him his final check like they’d been planning this for weeks and told him to go home immediately.

What what? Did they not see the bulleted list?

They said he was “unprofessional”.

The starving Muay Thai Joe Pesci-like Bob was unprofessional? Surely they jest.

He wondered if it was the way he dressed or the St.Louis hot-in-herre drawl he spoke with.

Speaking of which, I can’t figure out why the tax revenue from St.Louis is so disporportionate to the number of people in higher tax brackets.

I can’t figure it out either.

I see.

Core is a very casual workplace, not a place for professionals.

So then when they called him “unprofessional” maybe they were complimenting him? Or maybe that word does not mean what you think it means.

This whole situation has sickened and infuriated me like nothing previous.

Why?

They took a man who had lived for so long without hope, and they gave him that, and then they took it away and threw his life in the gutter, and they did it like it was nothing.

Just like M. Night Shyamalan. Except he didn’t have Muay Thai to fall back on.

The one reason that I work for Core is because I love this job. I am happy all day long, every day. I really like everyone I work with, and all of you, our customers.

So I take it you’re paid in lollipop kisses and happy thoughts? No? Oh.

Unfortunately, and with many regrets, I cannot bring myself to continue working for people so heartless that they try to rip others’ out as well.

Ummm… grammatically this sucks, and therefore negates your entire argument.

I am ashamed to live in a world of such callous ruthlessness, and thus I absolutely cannot work for people that practice it so openly.

Yew, I was worried they were professionally callously ruthless, but I’m relieved to hear that they’re just practicing it.

I am sorry to all of you because I believe I have served you competently and will no longer be able to do so.

I cry… on the inside.

I do not expect you to boycott Core, nor would I want you to.

Then I shan’t. Shan’t I say!

Those that work there are my friends and they are all dependent on that job.

For Muay Thai lessons and dental work, yes we know.

I just want it to be known that a grave injustice has occurred, and that I, speaking only for myself, find that I am unable to tolerate it.

Then you’re a pussy.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for your time.

It’s great when someone fully acknowledges that they’ve been blathering on for way too long. I can fully appreciate that kind of self-awareness. I’ve thought about including something like that at the end of every one of my blog posts, but I’ve always chickened out. You sir are a shiny beacon of what I need to be.

Always keep room in your hearts for people with crushed dreams.

Like Nancy Kerrigan and Bob. But mostly Nancy Kerrigan. I mean, seriously, her knee was smashed with a club and you’re still going to take points off for her triple axel? Damn Russian judge.

If you have any thoughts about any of this, feel free to contact Core’s director, Tits Nipplicious at x12345 or at tits@ucsd.edu. You can also reach our sales manager, Hanzo Michaelango, at x54321 or kungfupasta@ucsd.edu. Those two will equally share the burden of the consequences of this heinousness if there is a life after this one.

Yes, I’m sure they’ll share a room together in Hell. Right next to Osama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and Toni Basil.

I will say that this guy’s got moxy. I mean, the collateral damage of a letter like this is simply tremendous. Sweet. Collateral is the best kind of damage.

Good luck with all of your research. I thought it’d be cool if I supplied the products that were used in the experiment that discovered a great discovery but I’ll get on with it. Maybe I’ll see you all again someday.

Can you believe it? He’s being denied the chance to one day sit his grandchildren down and tell them tales of how he delivered the stuff that we used to discover stuff. Well, not so much “denied” as “voluntarily withdrew himself from”. Let me tell you what my seventh grade table tennis coach told me: “Jesus doesn’t like a quitter. They’re the first ones to get raped in Hell.” FYI, man, FYI.

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A few notes about this letter. It was scanned as is, and yes, that’s 8 pt font he used, and yes, he didn’t separate his paragraphs by indentation or line spacing. In his defense, he used absolutely exquisite paper stock. Not the cheap shit we use at work. I mean, that was some premium 32 lb Hammermill paper.

And before you ask, no, I have absolutely no clue who this genius is. He desperately needs his own blog, which he needs to fill it up with letters about blessed-hearted people he knows. Hell, not even people, he could write about animals, furniture, the undead, whatever floats his boat. So long as they’re blessed-hearted and/or joy-reared.