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The Job I Shouldn't Have TakenNovember 19, 2008 An anecdote posted recently to Copyediting-L (as imperfectly recollected by me): A craftsman presented an object he had made, and someone asked him how long it had taken. He said, "About 20 minutes to make it -- and 20 years to learn how." The big problem with The Job I Shouldn't Have Taken (for details see bloggery for November 17) is that the writer put in the 20 minutes but not the 20 years. That's figuratively speaking: for sure it took longer than 20 minutes to write. But consider the difference between an experienced woodworker who builds a bookshelf in half an hour, and a beginner who takes a week to produce a bookshelf that's nowhere near as good as the master's, or even the journeyman's. The beginner has almost certainly learned plenty in the process, about tools, materials, and techniques; a bookshelf is a pretty good first project for a novice. What if the beginner immediately set out to build a rolltop desk? Even with detailed plans, the result probably wouldn't be pretty, or functional. Perhaps the beginner would give up in frustration long before it was finished. Or a master cabinetmaker would swoop in to hijack the project before the workshop was buried in wood shavings and broken tools. Maybe, though, just maybe, the beginner would realize that she'd bitten off more than she could chew, hammer, or saw and she'd then set off to develop her skills with less ambitious projects. The roll-top desk might become the equivalent of her senior project, if not her dissertation. As a writing project, The Job I Shouldn't Have Taken is nearly as complex as a rolltop desk. In addition to proficiency in written English, it required the interviewing skills of a working journalist, the storytelling ability of a novelist or historian, and an editor's facility for structuring material and perceiving gaps. None of these are more than sporadically in evidence. I'm the woodworker who's been called in too late to do more than damage control, or the seamstress who has to rip out most of the stitching done by her predecessor -- only to discover that the cloth was shoddily made, and there isn't enough to do the job right. It's frustrating beyond belief. Yeah, I'm getting paid, but because I underbid the job, the money doesn't adequately compensate me for the time, or the energy, or the knowledge that all my time, energy, and experience may be improving the result, but they aren't making it any good.
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