In Syracuse, two feet of snow with temperatures in the 20s and a single-digit wind chill can only mean one thing: Summer is fast approaching.

For most of us, that means the upcoming days and weeks are crucial for obtaining summer jobs and internships,without which our college degrees are just a huge waste of time, money and Adderall.

Personally, I hope to spend the summer clerking at the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Want To Learn To Do Other Things Good Too, but if that falls through, I’ve still got plenty of backup plans.

You see, I take summer work far more seriously than my school year responsibilities, which basically amount to not getting arrested (so far, so good), remembering to put on underwear (work in progress) and balancing my grocery budget with my beer budget (well, at least we have beer).

That’s why every March, I bust out my box of 64 crayons and send two-dozen potential employers the most professional hand-drawn resume and cover letter that can possibly fit inside a page of my Sesame Street coloring book. It’s a fail-safe recipe for success.

So far, I haven’t been accepted to any internship programs, but my applications are definitely turning heads. In fact, one program coordinator was so impressed by my references, my credentials and my artistic representation of Snuffleupagus that he responded personally to my application:

Dear Daniel,

I’m sorry to inform you that you were not accepted to our internship program for this summer. This year’s candidates were an extremely competitive and well-qualified group, which means we had to reject several outstanding students who applied, including you.

I want to take this time to assure you that your application was strongly considered before we ultimately decided to light it on fire and use it to make fondue. Rejecting a promising young scholar is always very difficult, which is why we needed a fondue pick-me-up after we passed you over for the tasty blonde from Florida who sent us a bikini shot with her resume.

Ultimately, the eccentricities of your application steered us away from hiring you. Though your basic qualifications impressed us, the fact that you played Samantha in a live all-male rendition of ‘Sex and the City’ has very little to do with the expected responsibilities at this office. In addition, your photograph appears to be your head superimposed on Big Bird’s body, which makes the bikini you’re wearing in the shot all the more disturbing.

Due to these factors, we decided it would be best to allow you another year of growth, maturity and psychotherapy before joining our staff. By next summer you should, at the very least, be able to color inside the lines of your book. Plus, according to your biography, you are still one term away from taking your O.W.L. exams at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Given your young age and strong personal ties with this organization, I encourage you to continue pursuing work in this field. Hopefully,you will take this rejection as an opportunity to further improve your credentials and coloring skills so that, in the future, other companies like ours will let you file and copy papers eight hours a day for no pay.

Whatever you do, stay the hell away from my office.

Sincerely,

Dad

P.S. Stop asking me for money and get a job that pays.

Danny Fersh is a junior broadcast journalism major, and his column appears every Wednesday. He would like all you business executives out there to know he’s still looking for a summer job, and he’ll wear anything from yellow feathers to Manolo Blanhiks for the gig. He can be reached at dafersh@syr.edu.