Some years ago, I was hired as the British-English copy-editor for a vastly wealthy multinational after a lengthy and complex test.
You know the company.
The commission was to be completed in the United States.
Text had to be localised (US English to UK English).
The room was vast. It was split into continents.
I sat opposite Russia.
The Germans and Turks were great fun.
‘Sentences’ comprised two or three words: insignificant semi-strands.
This is not copy-editing as I know it.
It is not copy-editing as anyone knows it.
What did those fragments form?
Were they lustrous pearls reserved for a magnificent rope necklace?
I feel certain this quasi editing introduces mistakes.
❓How can you ensure text makes sense when you are reading a tiny portion of it?
❓Where was the trust in this micromanagement?
❓Where were the now-dimmed skills of the 550 copy-editors?
❓Were there guttering torches starved of oxygen under concealed bushels in the manager’s office?
❓How is it that this behemoth demands the highest quality copy-editors in the world, then renders them mute – unskilled cogs on a production line?
There was zero satisfaction for the skilled and nuanced error detector/corrector.
Each time products were due to be launched, copy-editors were flown in at vast expense for three weeks (limos to and from airports, flights, five-star accommodation, meals included).
Language specialists had those weeks to work on sentence fragments.
Facsimiles of final webpages were revealed a day or two before the website went live.
This stage of the process was not prioritised: it was an afterthought.
Mistakes had to be graded.
How do you grade a mistake?
Mistakes are mistakes, especially for a picky fucker, which is the definition of a copy-editor.
My Grade Ones were downgraded.
Grade Twos and Threes were stetted: there wasn’t time to change them before launch.
Paying the world’s best. Settling for mediocrity.
Unfulfilling, unprofessional, chancy for a giant tech company.
