The cell block tango
[Ed.: Tourist weekend apparently mostly over, we now return to our regularly scheduled postings....]
When I returned from overseas, I had a bit of trouble getting to work. I mean, yeah -- the usual mucking about with bus schedules, but also much fun with the office that issues access codes.
I only stayed sane that first week by imagining myself on a medieval quest: this piece of plastic gives me access to the Halls of Policy Coordination, within which -- somewhere -- I will find The One True Sage among The Many Pernicious Pretenders. I will be given several Impossible Tasks and A Great Many Pieces of Sooth, only one of which -- but which? -- is True; the others will consign me to The Circles of Hell, otherwise known as multiple hours-long trips to the badge office. I kept Faith and Purity -- or my temper, at least -- and, finally, after many sub-process-spawning processes, and a few dragons (halitosis apparently being an occupational hazard of middle-aged Lords of The Cubicle), emerged victorious, Chalice in hand. Also with a nifty brightly-colored lanyard. And the earned right to marry Ned of Regional Issues and Liaison Affairs, minor nobility (or so he told me).
So you can imagine my disappointment when I finally went skipping down the hallway, my new office address in hand, and came smack up against, fly-on-windshield fashion, the enormous girded double doors to an inner keep, which remained resolutely impassive to all my new talismans and charms, even after a frantic phone call to Ned (who turned out to be a tad less powerful than he intimated; wedding definitely off.)
In the endlessly stretching days it took me to retrace my steps through twisty little passages, all alike, and slay Rodents of Unusual Size -- so many of them, here; so few on four legs -- how I dreamed of what lay on the other side of those massive fortifications, so jealously guarded. It would be like passing over into Oz, emerging into Technicolor, crossing the Rubicon...
...The fact, of course, that what lay on the other side turned out to be more like a cross between the world of Maxwell Smart and pre-unification East Berlin; a passing from color into black-and-white; this, I let dampen my new enthusiasm only a little (I mean, heck; I was still out of India). I chose to find my windowless quarters charming; my rapidly-blinking and exceptionally pale co-workers (their fraternization forbidden by an office policy motivated less, I think, by nepotism concerns than out of fear that any offspring would be sightless), endearing. Six wearying months later, the final indignity: I learn that the rest of the building calls this grim sleeve-within-a-sleeve section of rooms "the cell block."
And yes, wearying. The promised tango:
The first piece I "published" for my job, I labored over, trying to find the House Style. I ended up coming down on the side of conservatism, with personal, private concessions. (E to K: "See, look -- all my subheadings are subtle puns on the main theme of [redacted, but superserious and boring policy topic]. It took a little longer, but, I think, really makes the [grindingly dull facet of same] just pop." K: "I think you're in the wrong career.")
My boss didn't care for the otherwise unadorned style of the article, and let me know. But his boss liked it, so out it went. I should mention that there was pretty much one customer for this piece. I buried my polished little gem within a stack of his other material, feigned nonchalance, and watched him go through the pile like he was hunting for truffles.
Readers -- was it the puns or my skill at sepulture? -- he never touched it.
Fast-forward: new, even more staid topic.
I really wrestled with this one, having gotten conflicting stylistic guidance. And it was an assigned topic. And an assigned perspective -- one to which my own view is actually diametrically opposed. Fine, I'm a professional. No, even better: a mercenary. A Knight, in Resplendent Armor, setting forth...
Anyway. Many scrapped drafts and much tears of frustration later, and I had a piece I actually liked -- from the aesthetic point of view, at least. It read remarkably like something from The Economist (any Economist eds out there? Love your mag! Call me!). My boss was delighted.
And today...two days before vacation, still feeling relieved and gratified at having nailed House Style on my second attempt, the damn thing comes back, like something unflushable lurking around the bottom of the bowl. The big boss? Hates it, hates it, hates it. Total rewrite required.
Problem is...
Well, I can't actually get into the particulars. But, by way of comparison, I had an editor at one of my overseas assignments come back to me over some sentence like "Singapore has requested that the WTO relax cotton subsidies" and bark "Put it in the active voice!" It's more than a little like that.
Readers, what to do? (If I remember correctly, in the above example, I resubmitted: "Singapore demands with wielded guns that the WTO smash cotton subsidies into tiny bits!")
I love editors. Ninety-five percent I've known have been superlative human beings who have made my writing stronger. The other five percent I've encountered in my current career.
Sometimes, you hand an editor a cat, and he or she comes back with "Your dog needs major changes x, y, and z, because -- I have to tell you -- right now it looks nothing like a dog."
What on earth do you do then?
If you're like me, cry. And then take a deep breath, remind yourself of your financial responsibilities, and try to reframe your static-filled, discordant editorial guidelines as a tune -- their tune.
And then you dance.
When I returned from overseas, I had a bit of trouble getting to work. I mean, yeah -- the usual mucking about with bus schedules, but also much fun with the office that issues access codes.
I only stayed sane that first week by imagining myself on a medieval quest: this piece of plastic gives me access to the Halls of Policy Coordination, within which -- somewhere -- I will find The One True Sage among The Many Pernicious Pretenders. I will be given several Impossible Tasks and A Great Many Pieces of Sooth, only one of which -- but which? -- is True; the others will consign me to The Circles of Hell, otherwise known as multiple hours-long trips to the badge office. I kept Faith and Purity -- or my temper, at least -- and, finally, after many sub-process-spawning processes, and a few dragons (halitosis apparently being an occupational hazard of middle-aged Lords of The Cubicle), emerged victorious, Chalice in hand. Also with a nifty brightly-colored lanyard. And the earned right to marry Ned of Regional Issues and Liaison Affairs, minor nobility (or so he told me).
So you can imagine my disappointment when I finally went skipping down the hallway, my new office address in hand, and came smack up against, fly-on-windshield fashion, the enormous girded double doors to an inner keep, which remained resolutely impassive to all my new talismans and charms, even after a frantic phone call to Ned (who turned out to be a tad less powerful than he intimated; wedding definitely off.)
In the endlessly stretching days it took me to retrace my steps through twisty little passages, all alike, and slay Rodents of Unusual Size -- so many of them, here; so few on four legs -- how I dreamed of what lay on the other side of those massive fortifications, so jealously guarded. It would be like passing over into Oz, emerging into Technicolor, crossing the Rubicon...
...The fact, of course, that what lay on the other side turned out to be more like a cross between the world of Maxwell Smart and pre-unification East Berlin; a passing from color into black-and-white; this, I let dampen my new enthusiasm only a little (I mean, heck; I was still out of India). I chose to find my windowless quarters charming; my rapidly-blinking and exceptionally pale co-workers (their fraternization forbidden by an office policy motivated less, I think, by nepotism concerns than out of fear that any offspring would be sightless), endearing. Six wearying months later, the final indignity: I learn that the rest of the building calls this grim sleeve-within-a-sleeve section of rooms "the cell block."
And yes, wearying. The promised tango:
The first piece I "published" for my job, I labored over, trying to find the House Style. I ended up coming down on the side of conservatism, with personal, private concessions. (E to K: "See, look -- all my subheadings are subtle puns on the main theme of [redacted, but superserious and boring policy topic]. It took a little longer, but, I think, really makes the [grindingly dull facet of same] just pop." K: "I think you're in the wrong career.")
My boss didn't care for the otherwise unadorned style of the article, and let me know. But his boss liked it, so out it went. I should mention that there was pretty much one customer for this piece. I buried my polished little gem within a stack of his other material, feigned nonchalance, and watched him go through the pile like he was hunting for truffles.
Readers -- was it the puns or my skill at sepulture? -- he never touched it.
Fast-forward: new, even more staid topic.
I really wrestled with this one, having gotten conflicting stylistic guidance. And it was an assigned topic. And an assigned perspective -- one to which my own view is actually diametrically opposed. Fine, I'm a professional. No, even better: a mercenary. A Knight, in Resplendent Armor, setting forth...
Anyway. Many scrapped drafts and much tears of frustration later, and I had a piece I actually liked -- from the aesthetic point of view, at least. It read remarkably like something from The Economist (any Economist eds out there? Love your mag! Call me!). My boss was delighted.
And today...two days before vacation, still feeling relieved and gratified at having nailed House Style on my second attempt, the damn thing comes back, like something unflushable lurking around the bottom of the bowl. The big boss? Hates it, hates it, hates it. Total rewrite required.
Problem is...
Well, I can't actually get into the particulars. But, by way of comparison, I had an editor at one of my overseas assignments come back to me over some sentence like "Singapore has requested that the WTO relax cotton subsidies" and bark "Put it in the active voice!" It's more than a little like that.
Readers, what to do? (If I remember correctly, in the above example, I resubmitted: "Singapore demands with wielded guns that the WTO smash cotton subsidies into tiny bits!")
I love editors. Ninety-five percent I've known have been superlative human beings who have made my writing stronger. The other five percent I've encountered in my current career.
Sometimes, you hand an editor a cat, and he or she comes back with "Your dog needs major changes x, y, and z, because -- I have to tell you -- right now it looks nothing like a dog."
What on earth do you do then?
If you're like me, cry. And then take a deep breath, remind yourself of your financial responsibilities, and try to reframe your static-filled, discordant editorial guidelines as a tune -- their tune.
And then you dance.
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