Walking the talk

["Smith, Amy" <amy -dot- smith -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

 ----------
(AES struggles into asbestos underwear)

(AES also sticks neck out onto the chopping block)

(AES must have a death wish, but nevertheless...)

T. Mazza writes:

>The essence of it was: if I can't trust you with a trivial issue, how can I
>ever trust you with a crucial one? If you can't spell, and can't construct
>grammatically correct sentences, what does that tell me about the more
>important skills a writer must possess?

As someone else mentioned earlier, different managers have different
screening techniques. And that's cool. Whatever works for you. I
personally don't ding someone for a typo, especially if the resume comes
from a headhunter; on the other hand, I try to make my resume/cover
letter/samples/work as clean as possible.

My question/issue/problem is consistency. If spelling, grammar, perfect
resumes, whatever, is that important to you, and you say that that is
how you assess writers, than how about walking the talk? A resume is one
way of presenting yourself to the world. Email is yet another. In the
case of techwr-l, you present a face to your peers.  Isn't how you
present yourself on an everyday basis important too? Or are there
different criteria for you and the people you hire?  If spelling is so
important to you, spell things correctly. And yes, that means using a
spell-checker for email, if you have to.

And this wouldn't be as much of an issue with me if certain parties to
whom spelling and grammar are important didn't get snippy when other
parties ventured to correct their spelling (or similes, or whatever).
Maybe the correcting parties thought the corrected parties *wanted* to
know if they (the corrected parties) made a mistake.

(Having totally confused herself, AES sits back and awaits immolation.
The asbestos underwear is secure. And kind of snug, because we just had
a lovely lunch - grilled swordfish and Harpoon IPA in a funky little
place on Boston Harbor. So at least I'll die happy)

Amy Smith
amy -dot- smith -at- fmr -dot- com

My opinions are my own and not Fidelity's.

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