{"id":955,"date":"2020-07-02T07:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/n2rh.com\/?p=955"},"modified":"2020-07-02T07:49:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:49:09","slug":"getting-my-own-verb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/?p=955","title":{"rendered":"Getting my own verb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Good morning, homepeople. I have a couple of quick updates on my quarantine goals I set out a while ago:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Exercising is going well, but I may need to change things up. The 250 pushups spread throughout the day is great and delivering results. I’ve even switched to doing 50 at a time instead of 25 sometimes and noticed that getting easier, which is something I never expected. I might need to alter the running around the island though because my left knee has started to hurt and it might be too high-impact. I’ll see if our old elliptical machine still works, and if so, I may switch to doing that for 30-45 minutes a morning instead.<\/li>
  2. Creativity isn’t super high. Aside from not writing here as much as I would like, I still haven’t touched any of the side projects I’d ideally be making progress on. Even worse, I came up with a couple more ideas that I probably won’t get to. I suppose working full-time while being a father and husband (who uses morning free time to exercise) doesn’t allow much room for other activities unless I want to get even less sleep.<\/li>
  3. The beard: I’ve trimmed it, but it’s still much longer than I used to keep it, and I think it’ll remain at about this length. I did finally get a haircut as well, which was completely necessary since it was quite a mess of curls and waves that was threatening to become a Tom Hanks 80s-style mullet. Not a good look for anyone.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I told some people at work a story earlier this week and thought I could share it here as well. You see, I have a bit of a reputation at work as someone who is a wee bit picky about writing, tone, and word choice. I can’t help it; I care about those things a lot, and when I see it done sub-optimally, I have a hard time leaving it alone. I admit that I’m tough in this regard, and if someone wants me to review something before it goes out, I will have edits – even if it’s something I’ve looked at before and already edited. As it turns out, my team has a term for this: Peterizing. They apparently use the verb “to Peterize” with some regularity. For example, “We need to tell the whole site about this, so let’s write something up, get it Peterized, then send it out tomorrow morning.” I’d like to think that the term means “to enhance in a teachable way,” but it’s probably more like “to scrutinize but we have to let him because he’s the boss.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It’s used in a good-natured way, but I wanted to let them know that I’ve been in their position before. Two jobs ago, I was the face of the company to many of our clients and in charge of communicating with them. My boss, the company’s owner, was very particular about how things were written and wanted to see drafts of certain types of emails before I sent them out (i.e. big project updates, kickoffs\/introductions, etc.). The routine was as follows: I’d write something up, print it out, hand it to him, and brace myself as he grabbed a pen. He’d start going to work and mutter along the way things like, “Don’t need this,” “we don’t think<\/em>, we know<\/em>,” “don’t tell them that next step yet,” etc. I always got something back with a bunch of scribbles, but I also felt like he was actually making the writing better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Then one day, I started writing another email for him to look at and I stopped myself. “How would he write this?” I asked myself. And then I did my best to channel my boss and basically ghost write the email for him. I remember typing something, realizing he’d probably cross it out, and deleting it. When I was done, I printed it out, handed it to him, and braced myself as he grabbed his pen. He held it above the paper as he read, poised to write, but then he didn’t. Instead he looked up after a minute, handed me the unmarked sheet of paper and said, “Here you go. Best thing you’ve ever written.” I didn’t agree with that – that honor still goes to the gloomy poetry I wrote as a 15 year old – but I learned my lesson: write to your audience, and use the feedback you get to improve your process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So I told my team that story and explained that I would love nothing more to say the same thing to them, and I’ll keep highlighting what I’m changing and why to help them along the way. (For example, one guy is crazy for clauses at the beginning of sentences. I shit you not, he once wrote something that started with, “Unfortunately, at this time, due to unforeseen circumstances, it’s possible that there may have been a slight chance…” I couldn’t take it, crossed all of it out and wrote, “Just say the thing.” I may be a monster.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That’s it – nothing earth-shattering or even funny today, but I wanted to post something and had a story to tell (about a story I told, incidentally). Have a wonderful 4th of July, and take care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Good morning, homepeople. I have a couple of quick updates on my quarantine goals I set out a while ago: Exercising is going well, but I may need to change things up. The 250 pushups spread throughout the day is great and delivering results. I’ve even switched to doing 50 at a time instead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2rh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}