More from the illiterate who evaluates me

Email to the team:

[Misspelled name] has declined the proposal coordinator position, but has agreed to stay on as a consultant until we find a replacement. Loni’s last day as a temp-associate is Friday, July 17, on Monday she will convert to a consultant, her email will most likely change to UCON after her name.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

As a matter of fact, I do have questions: (1) Do you realize you've strung three sentences together? (2) Can you define "sentence"? (3) What's with the commas in place of periods? (4) Why don't you have the decency and respect to spell staff names correctly? (5) How in the world do you keep your job?

These gems just in, from the latest of her emails today: less then one year; They just need to make sence.

This is the person who reviews my performance.

I did a quick edit of a "white paper" my manager sent to me at 3:30—quick because it was 12 pages and I had to leave at 4 sharp.

She still can't grasp the concept that editing takes time. I've talked up my varying "pages per hour" capability (depending on the level of effort required), but to no avail. This is as close to truly talking to a wall as I've ever been. Back to the point.

The title of the article contained "Area Processing Center (APC)." Throughout the article there were singular (APC) and plural references (APCs).

After I submitted the paper to her she asked me why, as the title contained "APC," I added "s" in many places. I actually had to explain that there is more than one APC.

The Illiterati are taking over my office.

The Rookie (see entry immediately below) continues her relentless pursuit of endearing herself to anyone above her in the hierarchy. Here's another one of her needless (by any normal business standard) updates to the proposal center manager:

"Bud was able to download the Acrowizard successfully and will have 30 days to work with it and see if it is helpful and/or a tool he would most likely use.

"I will touch basis with you and Bud a few days before our trial period is over to see if it is something worth purchasing. Thanks!"

First, the "and/or": Using this construction doesn't make you appear to be a good writer. It's lazy writing and, in this case, it's not even correct. "Helpful and a tool" works, even though it's redundant. "Helpful or a tool" is a nonsensical pairing.

Second, "I will touch basis with you" . . . no comment needed.

Third, "Thanks!": Who here needs to be thanked, and emphatically to boot?

Subject-verb Manager-editor disagreement

The proposal center manager continues her unabated assault on the English language:

"Please let GVA know when the documents has been complete."

It's a miracle I don't get migraines.

Waterboarding, written edition

You might remember an email from one of my coworkers who wrote to the staff, "Sorry for the incontinence" (see 3/13/09, "Not everyone . . .").

Well, he's making a return appearance. Yesterday he sent me an email with this: "But [yours truly, Bud, has never been called this before] can you please edit this graphic, [you just asked a question; the comma's so wrong!] I will bring over the hard copy [the end; period goes here dumb-dumb]"

The illiteracy that surrounds me is the bane of my existence 40 hours a week.

Hi. My name is Bud and I have a problem with illiterates.

There's a Seinfeld episode revolving around the fact that Jerry's Catholic dentist, Tim, has converted to Judaism. Tim immediately starts telling Jewish jokes. Jerry takes issue with Tim's conversion because he believes Tim converted just for the jokes.

He shares this with a priest, who asks him, "And you are offended by this as a Jew?" Jerry answers, "No, I'm offended by this as a comedian!"

Which brings me to real life.

My illiterate manager sent an email this morning alerting the team that she'd be out today. Me and one other person were omitted from her message, which a coworker passed along to me.

I sent her an email inquiring about the obvious omissions.

Here's her response, verbatim:

"Regardomg tje notice of me being out today. This was not done intentionally, since I was sending it through my blackberry and I did not get the spelling of everyone’s last name, I sent it to those that their email was in my inbox."

Putting aside the fact that she doesn't have all of our addresses on her BlackBerry, just look at that writing.

Does this offend me as a member of her staff? Sure. But it really offends me as an editor!

Zen

From one of our desktop publishers:

"I am going to be tomorrow morning by 9:30am."

She may be language challenged, but does it really matter if she can be one with time?

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."