The Lost Art of Paying Attention to Details

I am a composition instructor for a private college.  You might not be able to guess it from this blog, but I am a stickler for details.  Grammar, punctuation, layout:  There are rules, and they should be followed.  


My students freak out when I walk past them and say things like, "Oops, you have an extra space between those two words" or "It looks like your margins are 1.2 inches; make sure you set them to 1 inch."  They are like HOW DO YOU DO THAT, YOU CRAZY WITCH WITH LASER EYES??!?! and I just remind them that I see HUNDREDS of papers every few weeks.


I obviously don't tell them that surface features are more important than content and development and originality and whatnot, but I tell them that once they have that content, they should pay attention to the surface and make it as pleasing to the readers' eyes as possible, because that is what makes documents professional.


I really try to model professional writing with my students at all times.  It's too bad my husband tries to sabotage that.


Back when we were dating, I was in my first year of teaching at Central Michigan University.  We spent a lot of our free time at my apartment because I usually had tons of crap to do and was always reading drafts and answering student e-mails.  Also, I liked my apartment better, but that is neither here nor there.


Anywho, one night, I was at Jeremy's apartment and I jumped on his computer to get some work done while he was watching a baseball game.  I had an e-mail from a student who was really struggling to put her paper together.  She had sent me a draft and asked for comments.  I spent a long time giving her ideas and pointers and comments.  At this time, I was using the comment feature on Word that adds little bubbles along the margins and saves it as a whole new document.  I finished, double-checked all my comments to make sure they made sense and had no spelling errors, attached the document to the e-mail, and sent it off.


After sending the e-mail, I decided to create a document to distribute in class the next day, and opened Word again.  As it was loading up, I just happened to notice the registration information on my lovely boyfriend's version of Word -- Author: Jeremy, Registered to: MY ASS.


PANIC.  I opened the e-mail I had just sent to my student and rolled over each of the comments.  Every time my mouse rolled over a comment, a little bubble appeared, announcing the same information -- Comment author: Jeremy, Registered to: MY ASS.


I screamed at Jeremy to come look at what had just happened, and what does he do?  LAUGH AT ME.  Ha ha, that's so funny that you sent that to your student.  Really?  REALLY?!?!  Get ready to be my sugar daddy when I get FIRED!!


Jeremy was quick to point out that had I noticed that BEFORE sending out the e-mail, I might have avoided the situation.  You know, by paying attention to details, like I ask my students to.


Eff that noise.  I didn't take into account that my loving boyfriend might SABOTAGE my career.  But now I do.  Oh yes, I always assume sabotage. My best advice: CONSTANT VIGILANCE, my friends.  You never know when someone might trick you into making an ass of yourself.  You can take that advice to the bank, people.