WARNING: The beverage we are about to describe is believed to contain an absurd amount of caffeine. It is dangerous, and you should not drink it. It may kill you. If it doesn't kill you, it likely won't make you stronger, despite Friedrich Nietzsche's claims. It may hurt you. Do not concoct, ingest, or serve this beverage to others, or allow anyone to do the same. We take no responsibility for any harm that may befall you or others in connection with this beverage.

The coffee bar guys in the employee cafeteria know their stuff. You want it black, no sugar, no cream? No sooner said than done -- they'll set a steaming mug of fresh roast right on the counter, just for you. Slap down a five-spot and they'll make a cappuccino to order, with the whipped cream and cinnamon to boot. Tea? You bet. And do they know espresso? How silly of you to ask.

Their drink-making prowess goes further than the chalkboard sign above the bar is long, and that's saying a lot. I counted a dozen types of drinks before I gave up counting. Yet for all their knowledge, there's a drink that only a select few know how to make. It's rarely ordered, and justifiably, because it's not on the menu. More so, because it's killed the odd summer intern or two over the years.

Although the exact formulation is not known (nor are we permitted to divulge that information, on our lawyers' orders), the beverage is essentially this: strong black tea brewed in a cup of steaming black coffee, with two shots of fresh espresso stirred in.

We call it "The Nightmare," because after one of those, you sure aren't sleeping.

Ten-hut! Look alive, you sap-sucking excuse for a soldier! Living among people is a dangerous enterprise. The problem with most people is that they are human beings, and I'm glad I'm not one. Learn these techniques, and there may be hope yet for your survival in modern society.

Tempered Indifference
 Sometimes, silence is the best answer. This is true when any answer other than silence can hurt your position. Since this tactic is effectively inaction, it is the least aggressive deployment in your arsenal. Even so, with shrewd usage it can be an effective weapon.
 
The Wife: "You left the toilet seat up again!"
You: "..."

In this example, you have neither conceded your position nor refuted the issue posited. You have also set yourself to plausibly deny the circumstances presented, if pressured. Taking it a step further, where circumstances permit, you can plausibly deny you actually heard the statement. When properly applied, the target may eventually forget why it accosted you in the first place, or simply give up altogether.

This is the weapon of choice of husbands everywhere.

The Radar Jammer
 This technique works best when you need to end a conversation quickly and there is little chance of collateral damage (i.e., causing an incident that might embarrass you). When done properly, it stuns the target into a perplexed silence, granting you a few precious moments in which to make a hasty retreat. It works best when delivered in a hurried, self-important, preferably deadpan tone of voice, and when the subject matter of your sentence is absurd or shocking.
 
Sidewalk Activist: "Sign my petition?"
You: "Can't, sorry. I left the oven on at home and my dog's on fire."
 
In the above example, clearly (hopefully), you have lied about your oven being left on. You have conducted a value judgment in which the benefit of escaping the conversation outweighs the cost of lying. Your dog will not be happy.
 
The radar jammer is a technique of moderate aggression. Thus, it should be used where the situation warrants, or when Tempered Indifference fails. Do not overuse this technique in too short a period, as its effects will sharply drop off after the first salvo. If, after launching the Radar Jammer you cannot escape in time, or the technique fails to work, it may be reattempted, but its chances of success are impaired.
 
The Punctuated Freakout
This is the flip-side of, and the payoff to, Tempered Indifference. It is the double-edged sword in your armory, honed to a ludicrous edge. Caution is advised when considering this weapon, for it is just as important to know when to use it as when not to, as it becomes markedly less effective each time it is deployed. Thus, it is the nuclear warhead of your armaments.

The reason this technique is called the Punctuated Freakout is because you must first have mastered Tempered Indifference. You must have cultivated a reputation for being even-tempered for this to work to its fullest. Hence, your "Freakout," as we'll discuss later, is "Punctuated," or rarely seen, but appropriately triggered given the circumstances.

The "Freakout" portion must be precisely that. Freaking out is an art that escapes precise definition, but one aspect remains constant: you must go all out. You cannot execute a halfway Punctuated Freakout, much as you cannot halfway launch a continent-incinerating nuclear missile. Common aspects of freakouts include: blind rage, shouting, flipping tables, tossing chairs, kicking down cubicle walls, tossing computer monitors out windows, flinging documents into the air, sweeping the contents of a desktop to the floor, punching wall plaques, etc.
 
A Punctuated Freakout may get you fired (or promoted, or arrested), will likely get your point across, and will certainly be memorable, but most importantly, it will get your point across.
 
Yes, I did repeat that part. Got a problem with that? I didn't think so.

Since opening our doors, we've culled through plenty of letters from job-seekers here at the Syndicate. Usually we forward them on to our Human Resources Department, which happens to share office space with our paper shredding vendor. On an unrelated point, we've not had any job candidate interviews since we relocated our HR department, but that's likely an unrelated point.

Some letters never make it out our door. Out of the reams of paper that cross our desks each day, we keep a select few in our main office. These get copied and circulated, posted up in break rooms and on cafeteria refrigerators us to laugh at.

If you're starting to think we're insensitive for making light of others' joblessness, we ask you to hold your judgment for a moment. You should keep in mind two things: (1) the authors of these letters wrote us inquiring about staff writer positions, and (2) these people write letters as well as we draw, and that's saying plenty.

We've reproduced one such job seeker's letter below. Line by line, we'll parse what it says to get at what it really means to say.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Right off the bat, this candidate gets it wrong because he doesn't know whether we're men or women. We'll forgive him (or her) this and move on, as there's still a chance to net an "A" for effort.

My objective is to secure a rewarding position at your company.

By which is meant: "Hey, hiring manager, you're so dumb that I have to tell you why I'm writing you, as if sending you my résumé weren't enough of a giveaway."

I am a very hardworking, dedicated, and motivated man. Just ask any of my references. I'm accomplished and results-driven.

Ah, so our candidate is male, as if that would influence our hiring decision any. The rest of this phrase means: "I have no skills applicable to your business but am desperate enough to cold call you on the off-chance you'll write back." And that bit about being accomplished and results-driven means he would punt his own mother in the teeth if enough money were offered.

As a team player, I work best in a collaborative environment.

That's a loaded statement. Saying you're a team player is shorthand for: "I don't know how to do anything, so I pass everything off to other people." And knowing how to work in a collaborative environment means he's good at blaming others for his failures while taking credit for their achievements.

In light of these, he does appear to have management potential.

I strive for challenging work.

"Please hire me, I'll do anything."

While I'm best suited for the senior supervisory analyst job, I'm also available for any other positions.

What the hell is a senior supervisory analyst? We're not sure there's such a position in our corporate structure. That aside, the sentence above parses out to: "While I would prefer the job that pays the most, I really am that hard-up for cash that I'll mop your floors if you let me."

Current market bellwethers indicate a clear paradigm shift in the global economy...

"I have no idea what I'm saying, so here are some big words."

...and I am uniquely positioned to leverage my individual attributes to our mutual benefit.

"I went to college. Hire me."

My primary motivator is the sense of satisfaction I get after a job well done.

Such a lie. Our accountants would go into ecstatic fits if everyone who worked here were paid in personal satisfaction and not money. Banks would sure have a hard time cashing those checks, but that's beside the point.

I invite you to briefly peruse my two-page resume. You will see that because of the fact that my accomplishments speak for themselves, I would make for a fine addition to your team.

Ugh. So many errors per square inch of page that someone ought to develop a specialized unit of measurement to track them. Something like:

Dunce Coefficient = (Errors / Surface Area of a Page) x Number of Pages

First, he uses the word "peruse" in a sense contrary to what the word means. To peruse means to perform an in-depth analysis of something. If we understand him correctly, he'd invite us to take a cursory yet thorough review of his materials? Unfortunately, his "invitation" did not come with an RSVP section where we could decline with regrets.

And his resume is two pages long -- that's twice as long as it needs to be, unless the three letters after his name are Ph.D.

Something else bears mentioning: "...because of the fact that my accomplishments..." We'd love to call this candidate in for an interview just to ask, "So, which of your accomplishments is because of the fiction?"

I would be happy to supply references upon your request.

Earlier in the letter he stressed how all his references would vouch for him, and yet he doesn't have the decency to identify those references for us. We understand discretion is the better part of valor, especially when your job references are CIA agents or international spies. Chances are his references are his parents, so why the secrecy?

That letter was painful. Our bosses sent us home with hazard pay after reading it. Thankfully, our nausea had passed in a few hours and we were back to work  the following morning. To this day, the letter hangs on an office whiteboard. We use it to haze new employees.

We did eventually call this candidate in for an interview. It lasted all of three minutes. Check out the comic strip below to see how it went.