The Importance of Earnest Service

I improve what I’ve written every time I reread the copy but there’s a limit to how much time I can spend on a project as nobody will pay for unlimited hours to edit and rewrite. Under ideal circumstances, I like an hour to pass before picking up and reviewing copy–overnight is even better. If in a severe time crunch and the copy is more than a memo, I ask another writer/editor to review it.  Being clear and error-free matters.

[I digress, but have you read books by some well regarded contemporary authors lately? It appears that nobody, not even their Aunt Sadie, an editor or even the author has read the book cover to cover before it goes to press looking, at the least, for facts repeated a few pages apart.]

I don’t bash brands on this blog, but the instances to which I refer are so widely known that I am making an exception.

I wonder what was going through Steve Jobs and the Apple tech team’s minds to put a flawed phone on the market when someone had to know the antenna would give trouble. Just as poor copy won’t kill anyone, [unless you are writing dosage and side effect information for potentially lethal meds or assembly instructions for parachutes or bombs], an imperfect phone won’t either [except if the caller is dialing 911 for help and touches the antenna on the rim, which causes a dropped call.]

This lack of double checking [or ignoring the results of someone who has] seems to be communicable. Where was it going on at BP before crews sank a pipe in water far deeper than standard? And now that the horse is out of the barn-or rather, the Lockerbie bomber is out of jail and back home in the lap of luxury–we find out that he isn’t as sick as the judge thought/was told and he may live another 10+ years. [Apart from nobody checking the doctor's prognosis, since when should we care so much about the final days of a killer like this? But that's another subject.]

At the same time as some think of serious double-checking as a waste of time, we have reporters postulating where Chelsea Clinton’s wedding will be. TV reporters are stalking passersby in Rhinebeck, New York to gauge whether locals think the wedding will take place there or, as Erica Orden in The Wall Street Journal wrote on Friday in “Rhinebeck Conspiracy Theory,” when she quoted a resident police officer, “My wife thinks this is a decoy location….” On Sunday, in the Style section, The New York Times had its own, slightly different version of guessing the where and when.

Do you think that we should apply the sharp brains being wasted on this fluff to double check what’s going on in so many crucial areas such as finance and the war, or do we need the frivolity to survive the consequences caused by the rampant lack of double checking, even by some in the media, our traditional watchdogs?

In an anonymous comment on my last post, “Service of Independence Day,” [July 1], an articulate writer noted: “As my pediatrician is fond of quoting, ‘Without failure there can be no success.’” I’ve been planning to write about failure for a while. With social network ESP at work, now’s the time.

As I approached the topic, the first thing I thought of was that we can’t have weaknesses. Note a typical job interview where the interviewer asks, “What are your weaknesses?” The applicant replies:  “I’m a workaholic; I am too organized; I love working 13 hours a day when I know I shouldn’t and I hate vacations.”

The next thing that came to mind was the culture in some workplaces where no matter what you do, never, ever admit to failure. Sell one widget in a year when projections were for 1,000 and somehow you twist your report to show that have met your goal. Politicians always meet theirs, don’t they?

I’m from the school of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and again and again,” and then, if it isn’t working, I realize that I’ve done everything possible and the project or relationship or concept isn’t working or didn’t work. Giving it my all allows me to sleep at night once I’m over the disappointment/devastation/dust-off period.

[One exception is failure associated with anything electronic. I don't know about you but when something goes wrong with my computer, smartphone or other device, I sound like my mother asking myself, "What did you do?" More than half the time I did nothing and it's not my malfunction.]

More about failure: I set up and staffed a client’s booth at an industry trade show. The client was a trade association and the marketing committee wanted me to entice attendees to participate in an industry-wide initiative. Trouble is the attendees were at the show to find and buy product, meet with vendors and maybe look for a job. They weren’t the slightest bit interested in any program this or any other association was peddling. I became emboldened after day one which generated little traffic and less interest so the second day, I stood out in the middle of the floor in front of the booth with a big smile and spoke with anyone who came down the aisle. Very not me, but I was desperate. The results were appalling.  

Not long after, when another trade association-client, representing a different industry, had the bright idea to do the same, without naming names, I told them of my previous experience and the reasons for failure. The marketing committee ignored me and went ahead. Fortunately, I wasn’t asked to staff this booth. In spite of my warning, the committee members who staffed the booth were shocked when they reported dismal results. [I didn't say boo.]

You hope to turn a negative into a positive and label a glitch like this under “experience.”  That’s the success part? I also learned that like some children who must test what a hot stove feels like no matter how effectively an adult warns them that touching it will hurt, some people won’t listen to and/or learn from other people’s failures. 

A friend from third grade’s father used to say, “It’s what you don’t think of that will trip you up,” which has challenged me all my life to try to think of everything possible before a project or event so that I clear all decks leaving time to address unexpected bombshells. Still, sometimes, things fail.

These days, it happens a lot. You try to invest prudently and intelligently and surprise! Someone at the company–a household name with solid credentials and reputation–has cheated, lied or exaggerated. You get burned, lose your money and are told that “Investing is high risk–just like gambling, don’t you know,” in the same patronizing tone of voice you hear when a person who has insulted you tells you that they were “just joking.”

Do you agree with the pediatrician who says that without failure, there can be no success? In a society that doesn’t acknowledge failure, has it ever played into your success?