Practicing legalism, overtime

A day in the life of a copy editor

Published on August 2, 2005 By Angloesque In Life Journals

Today, I sat behind a desk for 11 hours. Today I made sure that serial commas were not used, that words were spelled correctly, that m-dashes were used instead of hyphens, that each story stressed the benefit to the reader (hey, I'm not in news and I'm allowed to edit). Today my boss bought us pizza for working overtime. Today I made $18 an hour—a career high for me—for three hours. Today I got home at 8 o'clock too tired to make dinner for my husband and too tired to read. And this is what I wanted to do with my life? How am I even possibly making the world a better place by adhereing to AP style instead of a writer's whim?

How? How?!

Comments

kingbee

on Aug 02, 2005

Today I made $18 an hour

even adjusting for more than a decade of inflation, that's more bread than they were payin most of the copy editors i've worked with. you must do it well.

if nothin else, you're makin the world a less ambiguous place. you use an ap book rather than the chicago manual?

Angloesque

on Aug 02, 2005

even adjusting for more than a decade of inflation, that's more bread than they were payin most of the copy editors i've worked with. you must do it well.

Mm, no...well, I might be good, but the $18/hour was only for three hours of overtime, time and a half, y'know? And yeah, we use AP. I used Chicago where I was before this and had some...issues...when I started.

Gaah, I was not cut out to copyedit for my life, but it's amazing how fast I forget what it was like to be unemployed, so I'll quit my bitching and think about what it was like to not have money for anything but rent and our relatives were sending us grocery store gift cards....

-A.

BlueDev

on Aug 02, 2005

It amazes how quickly something we want becomes something we hate.

I know I have felt (am feeling) it.

crimson

on Aug 04, 2005

oh your aching back... I do the same, work all day plugging stuff into a computer, then come home and relax in front of my own. It's different when you don't HAVE to do it.

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