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February 26, 2006
old cop, young cop
After a lengthy diversion into writing, I've lately returned to editing. In the journalistic world where I began, editors ruled. They hired writers, fired writers, and got final cut. They owned you. Everyone wanted to be an editor, if for no other reason than being the abuser is infinitely preferable to being the abused. In technical writing, it's far more pluralistic. We're peers. Content ownership is a squishy subject, but fortunately it's just computer documentation; no one really goes to the mat to own such a thing.
Unfortunately, the editing profession often appeals to the wrong sort. Editors, like cops and teachers, are a mixed bag of 1) professionals with a genuine calling and 2) poseurs who simply crave sanction to tell others what to do. The latter's mission, as they see it, is to find fault. And like King Shit with a Badge or the pontificating professorial windbag, their masturbatory proclivities do a disservice to the actual professionals in their ranks—the people who just want to collaborate, to focus on the content. It's almost a religious difference. The pro editors see their job as making the writer look good; the poseurs see their job as making the writer look bad. The poseurs try to embarrass their writers with sheer volume of (alleged) corrections, and some even deride their writers publicly. And not surprisingly, writers learn to distrust, subvert, even hate editors. The dirty cops taint the good cops by association.
Courtney asks me what she'd need to do to be qualified for an editing job at Microsoft. At about four bourbons, I skip straight to snorting disdainfully.
"You're there."
"No, seriously."
"No, seriously. There are no qualifications, no requirements, no desired skill-sets. Does it say 'Editor' on your paycheck? Why, that makes you a professional editor."
"Yeah, but no one would hire—"
"You're cute. You'd be hired in a heartbeat."
She points out, quite rightly, that her academic and professional backgrounds have prepared her little for editing. She's naturally gifted with language, which helps. She was an English major, a fact that's persuasive to everyone but former English majors, who know there aren't exactly any requirements for that dubious status. She and I have done a couple hours' training on points of grammar, but that's the sum of her preparation. She's all potential.
"I'm not qualified," she declares crossly, shaking her head, echoing what I said of myself a decade ago—before I got qualified. "Not nearly. I haven't trained. I haven't apprenticed. I wouldn't feel comfortable correcting a professional writer. I mean"—she wrinkles her face in empathetic irritation—"who am I to find fault with someone else's writing?"
"At Microsoft? You're bloody over-qualified. In that you trained for five minutes, you're in the top tenth of a percentile." At least I didn't use my they're editors only because if they were hookers, they'd starve to death line. "Look. If someone catches on to your faking it, just say you changed it because your way 'sounds better.' Or say that you didn't know x because it's not important enough to warrant knowing. Or just poll some idiots who'll vote your way. This is a culture where that constitutes evidence."
"That's frightening."
A veritable horror show, it is. Welcome to Nightmare on 40th Street.
posted by john at 10:27 PM • permalink