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Then there was the report to our sponsor that was supposed to say "fast
fluence" but was printed with the phrase "fast flunkies" instead --
several of us claimed that "fast flunky" was, in fact, our job title. That
one was fixed in all hundred and some copies with correction tape (if you
remembers what that is).
My personal best was creating AND MAILING OUT a conference announcement
with incorrect dates (owing to having looked at the calendar cross-eyed,
or something -- who knows?). I'd been on the job less than a year, and I
wanted to crawl under the floor and die there.
The interesting thing was that we sent out a postcard showing a white-coat
type, holding an overflowing flask and wearing a flabbergasted expression,
with a message saying "We goofed! The correct dates for the XYZ conference
are..." -- and people loved it! We got all kinds of comments on how
creative we were.
It just goes to show: good editing is like tact. Nobody notices it unless
you don't have it.
Bonnie Nestor
mnj -at- ornl -dot- gov
DISCLAIMER: I work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for Lockheed Martin Energy
Systems, which is under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy -- but I
don't speak for any of them, and they return the favor.
