Dear Mr. _______:
Thank you for your letter of May 1. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your firm. This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite your company’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time. Therefore, I will initiate employment with your firm immediately following the New Year. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future candidates.
Sincerely,
New Employee
Source: Internet Circulation
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As a sensitive microphone picks up smallest sounds and amplifies them, a mentor listens to the smallest details of life and helps the protégé to hear them. A mentor is primarily a listener. The best mentor is one whose “own ear is turned toward the wisdom of others, who is always open to listen, to hear, and to transform life.” He is to attentively observe the protégé with love, compassion, genuine concern and interest. He is to have a vulnerablity in which he says “all of me listens to all of you” The mentor must listen carefully to the protégé, his story, and his needs. He must also listen to what is not said and how things are said. He must also listen to his own heart and instincts as a mentor, the stirrings, consonance, and dissonance. When the protégé is “listened to, probed, encouraged, challenged, and helped to hear, then the mentor has come alongside to help him.”
Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are two ways to acquire wisdom; you can either buy it or borrow it. By buying it, you pay full price in terms of time and cost to learn the lessons you need to learn. By borrowing it, you go to those men and women who have already paid the price to learn the lessons and get their wisdom from them.”
Baptists in Russia tell the story about a group of Christians meeting in secret for Bible study in a village near Moscow. Suddenly the door of their meeting room burst open, and there stood two communist soldiers, their rifles with bayonets pointed at the Christians. One of the soldiers said, “We want to be fair about this, so if you are not really committed to this Jesus stuff and you don’t really believe the Bible, we give you a chance to leave. Now get up and go if that’s you.”
It was Socrates who mentored Plato, who mentored Aristotle, who mentored Alexander the Great. Socrates described himself as, “a mid-wife assisting the labour of the mind in bringing knowledge and wisdom to birth”.
Let your protégé shine. An effective mentor is able to let a protégé have a few deserved moments in the sun for a job well done. The best way to make people shine is to let them be the gems they are and just provide a good setting and a little polish.