Thursday, April 01, 2010

Sooooo Annoying

As I've mentioned in past posts, I read a lot.  And if you read my blog, you know I write a lot.  Well, when I was growing up, my best subject was English/Writing (why do they call it English class?).  I pay attention to everything when it comes to grammar, spelling, etc.  I pay attention to it with my own work, but mostly I pay attention to it with other people's work.  As you read this, you might find some weird punctuation and unnecessary commas because I'm going to start bitching about other's deficiencies in this area.  So, look for some irony.

Anyway, when I send out job listings on Craigslist and people respond to it with an email to me and an attached resume, it is difficult for me to not want to toss some of them if people haven't taken the time to pay attention to such small details as making sure there is a noun AND a verb in a sentence.  I don't always write correctly on this thing because sometimes I write like I'm talking to someone.  However, when you're looking for a job when 10% of Americans are out of work, I would think you would want to be as professional as possible.  I'm just sayin'.  If an applicant can't even hit "spell check", it's a NO for me.  Also, if someone can't remember how to use there, their, they're, or then and than correctly, it makes me crazy.  It may not be a deal breaker, but it puts up read flags.  The jobs we have are usually detail oriented.  Okay, so that's my rant on people who write silly in general.  Here's what really irritates me...

Books.  There are authors that have actually been published and someone has been paid to EDIT their work, and I am able to find mistake after mistake.  This gets me SOOOOOOO pissed!  I get mad for several different reasons, but mostly because when I pick up a book to read, it's supposed to be relaxing for me.  It's a moment I get in my life where I get to escape, if only for 20 minutes.  I cherish those 20 minutes of not feeling like I'm having to over think until I find a mistake.  I will come up on a sentence in the book that I am engulfed in, and I find a type-o.  The book I'm reading now is notorious for it.  It is missing quotation marks when someone is speaking.  It is missing whole words!  Some of the words in the book are used wrong (like there, their, they're).  Also, what I am reading now is the third and final installment of the series.  The author got lazy and the writing style reflects her boredom and eagerness to wrap it up and move on to something new.  I hate this.  I hate it because it is in my nature to find these mistakes and fret about them.  I will be reading my book, page after page until I come up on one of these mistakes.  I will stop reading, go back and read the sentence over again, and I will edit it in my mind as it should have been written.  That is work.  I don't want to work when I'm reading for pleasure.  If I'm editing something that is for my job, that's okay because it is work.

So, there.  I had to get that off my chest because it has been bugging me for a while.  Now, I know that some probably and more likely than not, do the same thing when they're reading my blogs.  But I'm not a professional and I haven't hired anyone to go through and check my work (see, you're not supposed to start a sentence with the word "but"... I think).  Shit.  Now that I've written this, I'm going to be all insecure.  Oh well.

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