My ex-dissertation advisor, who is 60, told me that not only did the department have older women who typed your dissertation for you when he did his, they also fixed your grammar and spelling and stuff so you didn't have to worry about those things. I think he got his PhD in 1975.
This explains SO MANY of the articles we receive. My assumption was that they were entitled jackholes who think of editorial staff as the secretarial pool. Apparently I am not wrong.
My mom wouldn't let me take typing in high school (I believe the phrase "over my dead body" was uttered), due to some amorphous feminist principles. This has led, over the years, to my developing rapid 2-finger typing.
ION, I am in a pissy mood about everything today. For no real reason. I'm just tired of hearing everyone's effusive praise/affirmative remarks/exclamations about Every. Goddamn. Thing. Someone. Says! (In the office.)
I'm just tired of hearing everyone's effusive praise/affirmative remarks/exclamations about Every. Goddamn. Thing. Someone. Says! (In the office.)
Oh, wow!!! That's so great!!!!!!!
(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
I took typing in HS. I figured it would be helpful for using computers and papers and stuff. I think it was only slightly female skewed. That very well may have been the last time I used a typewriter.
I took typing because it was either that or study hall, and study hall seemed a waste. It was the single most useful thing I did in high school. At one time, I could type 65 corrected WPM on a Royal Standard. Now the idea makes my fingers hurt.
John Marsh, Margaret Mitchell's husband, was the advertising manager of Georgia Power. Rumor in the department had it that he brought the manuscript of Gone with the Wind into the office to be typed and corrected by his secretary.
I can't remember ever having learned touch typing in school, which is odd because from 7th grade on there was always at least one computer-related class, and we definitely had Mavis Beacon typing tests. But I have no idea when or where I learned concepts like "home keys."
One semester of typing/keyboarding was required for everyone to graduate in my high school. I did poorly and still don't entirely touch type.
I just had to suggest to one of the secretaries that if something is going to be enough of a rush that she calls me exactly 4 minutes after she emails me about it, perhaps she should tell me that in the email, because I had been working on it already, but had to stop so I could come back into my office to answer the phone.
eta: IOW, I agree with what shrift is about to say about the very Mondayish Monday.
What do you do when you erroneously receive an email filled with personal details? Do you respond saying, dude, you've got the wrong email address? Or do you just delete it?
Man, today is an obnoxiously Mondayish Monday. I'm just trying to get through it alive with my dignity somewhat intact.
When I was a proofreader at Giant Law Firm in NYC in the early 90s, we had to edit the master's thesis for one of the partner's wives. It was interminable, had a zillion drafts and was on Lamb of God Imagery in English Poetry.
