Editorial Stupidity

September 10, 2008 by Keli.

How many of you know what a Slip N Slide is?

I used one today, and I didn’t get wet. I didn’t even mess up my carefully coiffured hair. Because my Slip N Slide occurred, not on a long sheet of thin plastic flanked lengthwise by a heat-sealed tubular fold that attaches to an ordinary garden hose, making the surface very slippery, but inside my own head. It was a turbulent ride.

It started this morning when I received an e-mail rejection note from a nameless editor at Smithsonian magazine regarding an article proposal I’d sent them via their website. The mistakes in the e-mail practically sent me to the emergency room and clearly revealed who’d responded to my web proposal. Witness the subject line:

“RE: Wep Proposal”

What is a “Wep” proposal, dear readers? A stuper (short, once more, for an unblushingly stupid person) had struck again. Please note that the P key is nowhere near the B key on our keyboards (however, this may be significantly different on the keyboard of a stuper).

Never mind that he/she also misspelled the title of my piece. I was under the impression that Smithsonian put forth a magazine read by thinkers; those who had a mind and used it. I presumed that the people behind the scenes were thinkers as well. I am so naive.

Just in case “Wep” was a meaningful word, and I was the stuper, I looked up the definition on the Internet and here’s what I discovered:

Wep: Security protocol for wireless local area networks, blah, blah, blah…

I scrolled down and, towards the end of the definition, read this:

Used at the two lowest layers…

Ah ha! Now it made some sense. Someone who only utilized the two lowest layers of their brain had responded to my web proposal.

There were no errors in the boiler-plate, three sentence response. The only mistakes occurred outside the body of the e-mail, in the few parts that required some effort  - my title and the subject. I realize that the assistant to the assistant to the underling editor’s secretary probably read glanced at my piece, as they do get a multitude of queries, but even so, I dared hope for a dash of editorial finesse. I can be so demanding.

Thus began my downward mental slide. I took tiny steps backwards, tripping down a steep hill, my arms helplessly flailing, broken windmill-like. I began to harbor negative thoughts and included a dash of outrage for extra emphasis of my plight.

Fortunately, it didn’t last longer than a few minutes. I’ve learned to switch gears rapidly in order to accomplish my goals.

The best way to snap out of a negative mode is to take action. I don’t mean, in this case, track down the idiot assistant and make him/her write “Web” 5,000,000 times, tempting as it may be; I do mean take positive action. Send the article somewhere else (which is what I did) or work on making your piece even better. I think my writing skills have progressed, thanks to the many rejections I’ve received. I’ve often managed to get articles that were initially rejected by undoubtedly idiot editors (I am not bitter!), published elsewhere, probably because I worked a bit harder on making them better.

Negative interactions should make us think of ways to improve ourselves. Lapsing into a rage, despair or irritation does not = progress.

Think.

Keli

Keli@counterfeithumans.com

Posted in Professional Stupidity | 9 Comments »