Ten (among many more) things

September 11 is my final day as a FT, company-employed editor. I will not miss the following (in random order because I’m too lazy to sort in any meaningful order):

Supervised by a “manager” who personifies the Peter Principle

Told, “You decide [a style point], you’re the editor,” and then being overruled by illiterate proposal managers

Underappreciated, undervalued, and underpaid

Editing writing by people who don’t know the difference between, for example, its and it’s, their and there

Working with incompetent temp editors

Rarely, if ever, being thanked

Trying to educate people about the time required to do quality editing

Working with graphic designers and desktop publishers who never proof their own work

Working with managers and coordinators who won’t enforce version control, thereby giving writers access to files after my final edit

Writing and updating style guides no one adheres to, let alone reads

When we means me (and certainly not you)

(Update to entry immediately below.)

The most senior (and influential with executive management) proposal manager and I had a back-and-forth in which she essentially argued for the "grammatically correct but inconsistent appearing" approach and I repeated my recommendation.

She wrote, in part, "I say we talk about it next week and make a decision that we can work with."

For twenty months I have been told repeatedly, "You're the editor. You decide." Most of my style recommendations has been rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with style rules or logic. In total, those rejections have rendered completely meaningless, my role as the "gatekeeper of style."

That resistance and unwillingness to grant me the authority that should go with my responsibility, flows almost completely from the inability of the proposal center manager to tell our stakeholders in no uncertain terms that the editor who has twenty-six years of experience will make decisions of this kind.

Disjointedness: An Email Exchange

Bud – Trying to refresh my memory from what was discussed during our Team Development session at the Marriot, weren’t you supposed to update the style guide? Reason I ask is because we have new writers for the EDF proposal and they have asked me today to provide them a copy for reference. Just let me know where it is saved and I will take care of printing it. Thanks.
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Gloria [one of the two proposal coordinators in the Proposal Center],

I finished my work on it several weeks ago and turned it over to Ellen at that time so she could review the DTP section.

Also, I made some changes to the acronym section; I'll finalize the acronym section when Sue reviews the list I made of acronyms that never need to be spelled out. You might remember that was one of my action items coming out of our team building session with Bryn. I did that list immediately after that session, but as of a couple of weeks ago Sue had not yet looked at it.

Theater of the absurd: two characters, one act (Persona non grata II: 2/23 update)

Me: I've finished revising the style guide, except for the acronym section. I can't complete that until the acronym list is finalized, you know, the list I sent to you a couple of weeks ago.

Proposal manager: I haven't looked at it yet. [Nor did she ever acknowledge receipt of it.]

Me: Well, I guess in the grand scheme of things, in the context of the proposal center, you should give it as much attention as it deserves.

PM: I'll try to look at it tonight.

And I'll try to not be bald.

Persona non grata

Yesterday a proposal manager (in charge of a group of writers) sent a query to one of our two proposal coordinators (they shepherd proposals through the production process).

Unlike most PMs, he knows there is something called style and wants to consider it before his writers begin their work on the proposal.

He asked her the following style questions: (1) Ft. Monmouth or Fort Monmouth? (2) Service Desk or service desk? (3) information assurance or Information Assurance? (4) Periods at the end of bulleted items or not? (5) Army/DoD Group, or Army and DoD Group?

Not only did she not refer his questions to me, her response was that (1) the items weren't that important, (2) he and his writers could decide, and (3) “the Editor will also try and catch any inconsistency that was missed by the writers.”

Let's break down the three elements of her response. First, how we treat each of these items is what style is all about. Second, I’ve been charged with developing and enforcing house style. Third, I am a nameless editor who will “try” to catch errors.

Because she cc'd me on the e-mail thread, I responded to his questions with specific answers for each item. He thanked me. She didn’t even acknowledge my e-mail to him.

Again, editing is a thankless job, and it is made even more so (what is less than thankless?) when our role is ignored or, worse, undermined.

An exercise in futility

My manager has asked me to review and update the style guide for the Proposal Center.

Despite the fact that the guide resides in the template folder for every proposal in our content management system, I have seen very little evidence in my year with the company that any writers refer to it. And there has been no message—in any form—from the center manager to staff or contract proposal writers encouraging them to review it and to incorporate our style into their writing.

I have sent a number of style-related missives to several people who are responsible for managing the writers. Not one of them has ever even acknowledged receipt of those mini-guides.

I am going to resent every minute (and there will be many hundreds of them) I spend on this exercise in total futility. This will be a labor of love hate.