Saturday, May 30, 2009

In a word

One of my freelance gigs involves editing short articles online. The editing process moves through several screens, from selecting articles to final approval.

After the initial edit is saved, the next screen is for review. The three options here are to approve/submit, reject with comments, or send queries back to the author and request a rewrite.

At the bottom of the review page, there's a short bio/blurb written by the author. I suppose some editors might defer more or less to the author depending on what the blurb contains.

I just did an article where the blurb read, in its entirety, "Dennis writes."

Brevity is the soul of wit, or laziness, or paranoia, or super-humility, or something.

Friday, May 29, 2009

For My Country

These are the times that try editors' souls.

Nevertheless, we must soldier on and put the greater need before our own.

We must sacrifice and do anything and everything in our power to help shape the work of our great writers in order to respond to the citizenry's insatiable need for answers.

So it is with great humility and overwhelming feelings of privilege and humility that I undertake to edit the writings below (in my freelance editing queue), words that will some day be looked upon as the key to bringing us out of the Darkness and into the Great American Century.

Even though some of us are on the periphery of the Fourth Estate, we nevertheless can hold our heads high and say that we, too, are part of that bedrock of our Democracy.

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  • How to Sell a Westgate Resort Timeshare
  • How to Achieve Excellence in Fundraising
  • What Are Health Insurance Plans?
  • About a Medical Career
  • How to Play "Light My Fire" on Piano
  • Cures for Gastroenteritis
  • Advantages & Disadvantages of Polyurethane Foam Insulation
  • How to Cook Catfish Nuggets
  • How to Plan a Pinewood Derby
  • Wednesday, May 27, 2009

    Danger, S-curves ahead

    We had a temp editor in yesterday to help me out with proposal work.

    At one point she asked me if the abbreviation for "headquarters" should be "HQs" because, as she put it, "headquarters" ends with an "s" and is therefore a plural.

    I know, I know, it can be a plural, but in this case it was "Duh Inc.'s headquarters."

    Today I checked to see if the review team's final hard-copy edits were made correctly by our desktop publishers. In the process I had a chance to see all the files that the temp worked on. Oy vay!

    I've worked for the agency that sent this editor our way. At that time I met many of the temp editors they employed. They do virtually no screening and do not administer an editing test. They assemble their pool of editors simply by reviewing resumes.

    It's because of this type of practice (i.e, send anyone who says they're an editor out on assignment) that many writers don't want an editor to go anywhere near their work. I can't believe that agency is still in business.

    Monday, May 25, 2009

    RIP Telecommuting (d.2009)

    I love telecommuting—Tuesday's at home in the comfort and quietude of my apartment. (Note re quietude: I know, the word choice could have been better. I just wanted to use that word for the first time in my life.)

    Our manager performed the coup de grĂ¢ce on this cherished benefit last week. Her fiat read, in part:

    "Over all, to stop complaints to HR about how some people have more privileges then other (working from home being one of them), I have decided to discontinue the telecommuting." [grammatical errors hers]

    So, in her typical, clueless fashion, rather than lead and manage the Proposal Center staff toward more respect and teamwork and thereby create a more equitable environment, she decided to punish everyone.

    It's also noteworthy, and oh so telling, that she specifically states the reason for her decision is "to stop complaints to HR."

    I miss the '60s and '70s. Back in the day, I had more than one job where staff would have organized to get rid of a manager who did more harm than good.

    What are those guys doing over there, playing games?

    As the editor for the proposal center, my responsibilities include editing all graphic elements of a proposal. These include a variety of tables, charts, and figures. Many of them are very complex multicolored and layered images done by our graphic artists using memory-intensive software applications.

    The graphic artists' repeated requests to have faster computers with increased memory were finally acted upon, and their new PCs were ordered.

    When they arrived, the mailroom staff refused to accept delivery because the wording on the boxes included words to the effect that the PCs were excellent for gaming.

    Despite being apprised of this by our production manager, our manager took no action to deal with the situation. So the graphic artists plod along and do the best they can.

    When this was discussed at a recent staff meeting, the production manager, not our manager, said that when the graphic artists' PCs crash in the face of a critical deadline, he'll tell someone upstairs "I told you so!"

    The proposal center manager sat in silence, as is her wont. Not providing any leadership or management is one thing, but actually getting in the way of staff is a horse of a different color. Such horses should be sent to the glue factory.

    Sunday, May 24, 2009

    Temporal Fixation Syndrome

    If I had a nickel for every time I've encountered since used in the place of because, due to, as a result of, owing to, etc., . . .

    OK, Merriam-Webster lists this usage as the third one under since used as a conjunction. But this is akin to following the letter but not the spirit of the law.

    Tuesday, May 19, 2009

    Written with a forked tongue?

    From craigslist:

    "TMCnet, the leading business-to-business Web site serving the IP communications and related technology market, has an opening for a senior-level editor in their Norwalk, CT office."

    But further down in the ad:

    "We believe in promotion from within . . ."

    So either TMCnet doesn't actually believe it, or outside applicants needn't apply, which begs the question, Why do companies intent on promoting from within even bother to place want ads?

    Sunday, May 17, 2009

    Time IS money.

    This past week I started to do freelance editing for a company that provides a wide range of material for companies with an online presence.

    I copy edit short how-to articles and fact sheets—a few hundred words or so. It takes me about 15 minutes to knock one off. The very simple ones can be done in less than that. I get paid per completed article; the money is sent to my PayPal account .

    This work has altered how I view the use of my time. Should I watch a Seinfeld episode or make a few bucks? Should I get together with friends or make some grocery money?

    In "Romeo Is Bleeding," Gary Oldman plays a corrupt cop who gets paid a lot of money by mobsters to provide them with inside information. He takes his ill-gotten gains and, as he puts it, "feeds the hole"—his "bank" under a sewer grate in his backyard.

    Should I stop blogging now and feed the hole? Tick-tock tick-tock.

    Saturday, May 9, 2009

    Trifecta

    I hit the jackpot yesterday. I did not thank god for this particular Friday, on which all of the following transpired.

    Win: The Telecommuting Policy

    We’re allowed to work from home one day a week. (My day is Tuesday.) However, when we’re under the gun and a proposal deadline is posted on our Big Board, that policy is suspended. The application of the policy is as clear as mud. To wit:

    From one proposal coordinator to staff: “We only have 3 weeks to support this effort. The following weeks will be busy weeks—lots of graphics, DTP, etc. So please do NOT plan on working from home starting next week till due date.” (policy #1)

    From the proposal center manager to me (in response to my question, “If no editing takes place next week or the week after, can I work from home on 5/12 and 5/19?”): “If you cannot see how you can help during this time, then you may work from home.” (policy #2)

    From our second proposal coordinator to staff: “There’s no working at home the week a proposal is due.” (policy #3)

    Place: The Acronym List

    One of my responsibilities is to put together a list of acronyms and key terms, extracted from a Request for Proposal as soon as we receive the RFP. The list is a style guide for the proposal writers.

    I spent a few hours on Friday doing a list for an upcoming proposal effort. I sent it to the proposal manager for his review/approval.

    His response to me: “We will probably not use 50% of the Acronyms on this list in our proposal. . . . Go through our Pink Team folder, through each of the drafts, highlight those we use; we can later delete the rest.” So, first, writing has commenced before anyone asked me to provide an acronym list and, two, the proposal manager (a contractor) has decided that we will abandon our procedure of using the RFP as the basis for the list.

    Show: Memory Like a Sieve

    The proposal center manager asked me to do a “quick edit” (i.e., one hour) of a 45-page white paper for corporate HQ. First, I already edited it, a couple of weeks ago. Second, I have told her repeatedly that, for obvious reasons, no editor can edit 45 pages in one hour!

    Wednesday, May 6, 2009

    Yin and Yang

    My favorite is the em dash. It says, "Stop! Look at me. Take notice. Something important is happening here." To my mind, it's the prima donna of punctuation, in the best sense.

    And then there's em's bastard cousin, the hyphen. Half the size, twice the trouble! It intends to clarify, to help avoid confusion. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." I'd like to commit punctuational genocide on the hyphen.

    Friday, May 1, 2009

    My office is flush with illiterati.

    From our production guy: "If your not busy and have nothing to do. I could use your help putting the vista material into the binders. Thanks, R."

    In personnel news, one of our proposal coordinators is switching to a writing position. An email update from the proposal center manager on her search for a replacement reads in part:

    "Just wanted to let everyone know that I have identified [Is she hiring or visiting a morgue?] LR as the new Proposal Coordinator to backfill [Crank up the backhoe. MR's doing some excavation work.] JN."