The Brotherhood of the Frayed Pants

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the last day of my final full-time position.

In countless ways, as previously described here in excruciating detail, being the senior editor in that particular proposal center was the worst editing job I've ever had.

I worked there for 20 months but knew within a few after starting that it was a bagfull of wrong. The question was how long I'd last.

I set my target resignation date to roughly coincide with my retirement in terms of Social Security, and my plan to have in place freelance editing work to supplement my SS income.

That done, the next decision was how to "mark" my progress toward September 2.

Some people fast until whatever, others don't shave or cut their hair. I chose a haberdashery approach. Specifically, I decided to wear the same pair of pants every day for the roughly 12 months leading up to the Last Day.

The fact that they, and I, made it, albeit somewhat worse for the wear, is a tribute to will power, tenacity, and fine craftsmanship.

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

Persona non grata (one last time)

I turned in my resignation on Monday. My final day as the government proposal editor for the IT company will be 9/11. I picked that date for its obvious symbolism. It changed our lives forever. Leaving this god-awful job will do the same for me.

When I told my manager, her only words were, "I was just getting used to the idea that you were going to be around for a while."

I could not have hoped for a better, more representative, ending statement from this dolt whom I have endured since January '08.

After twenty months, she finally realizes that I'm actually there. Well, not quite, because as she puts it, it's merely "the idea" that I'm there.

What is it about "unavailable" that you don't understand?

Yesterday our new temp-to-perm proposal coordinator (who, incidentally, has more energy and enthusiasm than most of us can stand) sent out an update on where a few active proposal projects stand. In her email she mentioned that there might be some weekend work and asked us to let her know if we would not be available for any of the next several weekends.

I responded by telling her that I would not be available for weekend work in the foreseeable future. (Given that I have one foot out the door, I'm not giving them one extra minute of my time or effort.)

She responded, copying our MoronManager, by asking me to make sure to put that information on the group calendar, which I had already done.

This morning MM came to me with a hard copy of my email to the proposal coordinator in hand, with "I will not be available for weekend work in the foreseeable future" highlighted in bright orange.

MM asked me if I could elaborate on my message. "Sure. I'm busy and unavailable." She then asked me to put that on the group calendar. "I already did that." And I thought, "Why don't you look at the f**kin' thing, you dolt!"

Considering the notion that everything happens for a reason, I think I've come up with why I've had this god-awful job, for a year and a half now. It's so that as I soon ease into semi-retirement—that is, transition out of FT work (read: quit!) into several PT freelance jobs—I can look back at this job and not miss having a FT office job one tiny bit.