ROASTIN' POSTIN'

I find myself a little stressed right now. The realization that I’ve got a lot of crap to finish at work before Wednesday and the Thanksgiving break has finally come crashing down on me.

I’m stressed because I’m up against a fairly right deadline for work. And this is a pretty high-profile job and I want to do a good job. Well, I always want to do a good job, but on jobs that are managed directly by the general manager and president, I want to blow their socks off.

So I’m plodding through this copy, and it’s not easy going. First of all, the brief is full of phrases like “actionable conclusions” and “synthesized analyses” and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate that shit. No-one talks like that, I don’t care if you’re the CEO of a billion-dollar company or the marketing director for the world’s most popular brand, you don’t talk like that.

Well, that’s not true. I’ve heard clients who do talk like that. And whenever I hear this convoluted marketing-speak, I try to do a simultaneous translation in my head to ferret out what the hell they’re actually trying to say.

See, good writing should be effortless. And not just for English Lit majors, but for the guy across the register at Taco Bell, too. I mean, why would you ever say “we can find mutually-beneficial synergies to achieve maximum return on investment” when you could say “we can work together and make money.” Language shouldn’t be used to obscure.

Anyway, I have to crank this stuff out before noon on Wednesday, because that’s when I’m signing out for the week. And as I write this, I realize that I need to post over the holiday, too. I had planned on getting a few in the bank, but that’s not going to happen now. Matter of fact, the only reason I’m writing this now is because I already know I’ll be staying after 5pm, and if it’s half an hour or two hours doesn’t really make much difference. I’m still getting home late.

Ugh, does any of this even make sense? I’m starting to crack under this posting every day BS. But only nine more days of that, thankfully.

Enough. Back to work.