One of the amusing/frustrating things about what I do for a living is that few people actually understand what I do for a living. Seriously, no one knows what the hell a proofreader actually does. When I’m introduced to people at parties and the inevitable “what do you do?” question comes up, my answer is usually followed by polite nods and something like, “uh-huh, uh-huh… so what do you do?” I think most folks have a vague sense that I’m the last, best defense against misspelled words (which is certainly one aspect of what I do), but the intricacies of the Chicago Manual, the vagaries of client-specific stylistic quirks, and the transcendent beauty of the serial comma — these are all usually quite beyond the imagination of the uninitiated. That’s to be expected, though; I wouldn’t know the ins and outs of an investment banker’s job, either.

The thing that’s really difficult for me to swallow is the confusion about the role of proofing within my own company. Just the other day, for example, one of my colleagues on the proofreading team received the following from a coworker:

Hi Proofer X* –
I know you’re slammed, but wondered if you could send a brief (2 sentence) description of what exactly the Account Y* proofreaders look for when they review Account Y* documents.

What my immediate response lacked in diplomacy, it made up for in accuracy: “Proofreaders: we keep you from looking stupid.”

My colleague immediately amended that with, “…when we’re not too busy trying to keep from looking stupid ourselves … ”

Well, after a few more exchanges of this smart-alecky caliber, someone finally came up with the definitive word on what it is, exactly, that we do… and, naturally enough as it came from literary, over-educated types who always had delusions of doing something much grander with our lives, it was in the form of a haiku, which I will now share with my three loyal readers:

Despair and blackness
Send proof that it is worth it
The emptiest void

That may not mean much to the average joe, but trust me, to those of us who hunt the wild apostrophe on a daily basis, this is frackin’ brilliant. Really. Didn’t you catch the pun? Brilliant, I say!

* Names changed to protect the not-so-innocent.