I used to be known as the handiest Jew in New York. I’ve been unable to extend the franchise to Washington—what with names like Greenspan and Bernanke in the hunt.
I came to Washington almost 10 years ago to create content for a startup Web site with a thriving, forward-looking business-to-business publisher that had recently been purchased by an investment bank. It was to be a large, searchable online database of home-building products. I was enticed by the promise of—if not riches, at least a good salary and, eventually, a comfortable retirement.
The database grew to 300,000 products. The taxonomy I developed to categorize more than 300 types of products was largely adopted by the GSMP—the international body that sets data standards for bar codes. But the Web site, which had been projected to do $30 million in ad revenue within three years attained only $3 million after seven. The analysts who ran the place deduced that the Web is really a marketing, not an information, play.
They hired SEO specialists and marketing execs from AOL (why, of all sinking ships?). They wouldn’t need editors—at least not subject experts as well paid as I. Staff was cut. I got a package.
I had to sign a legal document affirming that it wasn’t age discrimination. I don’t believe it was. More like penury. More like investment bankers and their analyst minions trying to save their own sorry asses, pardon my French. They knew about their toxic assets and the outlook for homebuilding before the rest of us. Start unwinding the position.
And so for the last three years I’ve been unemployed or under-employed. After being out of work for almost a year, I was lucky to land a 15-month stint as a technical writer with an architecture-engineering firm that does construction management for government projects. The pay—about half of my Web-publishing-cum-investment-bank salary. But the architects and engineers didn’t believe in allocating editorial resources to check facts or proofread drawings, much less rewrite wooden, unintelligible copy written by themselves. Understandable, in a way—most of their tech editors were 20-something English majors, not really technical. They didn’t know what editors like me do—or could do—except that it might take longer and cost more. There was push-back on working sound editorial practices into the project management process. The firm became embroiled in lawsuits, had trouble renewing clients and the work dried up. I got another package.
During these three years I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the waning demand for editorial skills as I had learned them over my career. At the beginning people hired me to write and edit books—fat ones. Later I was paid handsomely to write and edit magazine articles no longer than four pages each. In the Web site taxonomy business, all I had to do was make lists and write the occasional marketing blurb. At the A/E firm it was touching up the formatting of government-issue boilerplate.
I’ve also had time to reflect on a comment made to me long ago by a photographer named Peter Tenzer as we boarded a plane at La Guardia for a location shoot in northern Minnesota in late November: “You set one foot out of New York City and you’re asking for trouble.” It’s been snowing a lot in Washington this winter.