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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Education / Instruction
- Published: 11/27/2023
Mentor
Born 1956, M, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, United KingdomThe Old Man opened the document labelled ‘Finance’ at 3.20 p.m. and ran his eye over the first paragraph. The deadline was forty minutes away. The words danced but conveyed no meaning. They did not care about time. He looked up to the young man standing on his left. This young whelp could never have produced the verbal mush.
‘You didn’t download this from somewhere, did you?’
The youngster looked quizzically at the Old Man.
‘Tell me you didn’t write this,’ the oldster said, tempted to add ‘crap’.
The younger man’s face darkened. He felt as if he had been accused of a heinous crime. The Old Man did not wait for an answer and looked back at the screen. He re-read the first paragraph. He tried to tease meaning out of the sentences. For this reader, there was none. He sighed impatiently.
‘And this is for page two?’
‘I think so,’ Gbégbé simpered.
‘You think so,’ the Old Man sneered.
‘Do you want to see the original?’ the younger man offered.
‘Will it make any difference?’
‘It might do.’
‘Yeah, it might do,’ the oldster snarled.
The Old Man had been working on the newspaper for 20 years. The newspaper was distributed to the embassies and hotels where foreign businessmen stayed. Otherwise, visitors would have no access to the local press. Two years ago, he was given the responsibility for page 2. The paper’s page two comprised local news and features culled from local publications, translated into English, edited and finally slapped in. Occasionally, he would be lumbered with a 2,000-odd word assignment which conveyed nothing. The author of the original was probably told to fill a space and never mind the reader. The translation would be as opaque and as verbose as the original. Regardless of quality, page two had to be ready by 4 p.m.
The chief editor insisted. He ignored excuses about poor-quality writing. He wanted his spaces filled and never mind the reader. The old man world-wearily sighed again.
‘This is complete and utter bollocks!’
Gbégbé was not going to ask what ‘bollocks’ meant, but he sensed the b-word was not a compliment.
‘I mean, this bit: The new system will be established within the framework of expedient procedures to ensure the efficacy and effectiveness of the gradual implementation of digitisation and mechanisation. What the hell does that mean?’
Gbégbé shifted his weight and quoted the original text, which was just as unintelligible. The old Man interrupted him and asked the naïve, nerdy translator to explain in “simple terms” what it all meant.
‘And don’t quote the original to me!’
The Old Man was running out of steam and time. Meanwhile, Gbégbé was itching to leave the office.
‘Anything else you need?’ he muttered.
At 3.27, the Old Man ignored him, scrolled the text back to the beginning, and resolved to do as little to the text except to tidy it up for grammar and punctuation.
At 3.31, the electricity went off.
The Old Man stared at his reflection in the blank screen. His jowls sagged with despair. The grey hairs on his earlobes were getting longer. What a stupid place to have hair, he thought. At least he had a full head of mousey hair. He was reasonably well preserved for his 66 years. His piercing blue eyes watched the world with cynicism and contempt. Indeed, he knew the price of everything and the value of nothing, but still he felt ripped off. His belt buckle bit into the rolls of flesh barely concealed by the loose-fitting tomato-red tee-shirt. As he was adjusting his anatomy, the ‘Jujitsu’ logo appeared cheerfully in the left-hand corner of the screen. He opened the ‘Finance’ file, on which the changes had not been saved. He swore. He sensed that someone heard his profanity. It was 3.34.
She hesitated to ask the question that has been forming in her head. She had written an article for the ‘Interesting Places’ column of the paper’s weekly edition. The Old Man looked up at her challengingly. The petite figure smiled, but not too widely because she was still self-conscious about the braces on her teeth.
‘Did you get my piece?’
‘What piece, Bliss?’
‘I sent it you two days ago.’
‘What did you call it?’
‘Interesting Places.’
‘Was it about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?’
‘It’s for the column in the weekly paper.’
The Old Man sighed. He wished people would label their files clearly. He did remember going through a piece about ancient Egyptian writing. Bliss squinted behind her kiddie’s spectacles and looked closely at the Old Man’s machine. The file in question was opened. Bliss looked puzzled. The oldster assured her that the file was hers.
‘You’ve changed a few things,’ she remarked trying not to sound disappointed.
‘Of course, I have. You want people to read your work, don’t you?’
The Old Man turned to face her.
‘Did you actually go to this place and interview this person about the hieroglyphics printing machine?’
Bliss looked uncomprehendingly.
‘It’s not a trick question!’
She could not believe that someone was asking such a question. Yes, she had gone to that place and interviewed that question.
‘Well, whomever you interviewed didn’t seem to know anything about anything much. Ask someone who’s there looking at the exhibits. The news is about people, not cardboard idiots behind desks.’
The Old Man knew he was bullying the sweet little thing. She looked lost in the office. She roused affection tinged with pity. However, she had done what was asked of her: an article about a museum that had an ancient Egyptian printing press. Why was this old man making such a fuss? She had done her best.
‘Did you do any research before you went on this assignment?’ He assured her that this was not a trick question, but he knew she had not. She knew he suspected she had not. Meanwhile, Gbégbé’s nonsense article lingered on the desktop. Only 20 minutes to go before the deadline for page two. More stories for editing were piling up in the Old Man’s inbox. But he felt compelled to bully the little sweetie, who pressed her lips tighter. She wished the Old Man would let her go. Her nostrils flared like an irritated kitten.
‘Can you describe to me at least three ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols,’ he challenged. The Old Man flashed a list of symbols on his screen.
‘Are these Egyptian hieroglyphs?’
‘I think so.’
‘Sorry, Bliss. Trick question. This is the Phoenician alphabet.’
Bliss said nothing. The Old Man launched into a lecture about the Rosetta Stone, a piece of basalt on which the inscriptions were the key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian scripts. Then he went on to tell her about the importance of doing research and preparing questions before an interview. Did she have an idea of what she would ask the ignoramus sitting behind an intimidating desk? He did not give her time to answer because he assumed the answer would be ‘no’. Otherwise, she might have protested and actually pull up a list of questions on her smart phone, on which she might have recorded the interviewee’s replies.
‘What’re you reading at the moment?’
Bliss had no idea what he meant. The Old Man reached for a novel on his desk.
‘I’m reading that on the underground, an hour here and an hour back home: ten hours’ reading per week. How do you come to work?’
‘By train.’
‘And how long does it take?’
‘Two hours.’
‘And what do you do on the train?’
Bliss grinned with embarrassment. The answer she would give would not be music to the Old Man’s ears.
‘Sleep.’
‘Sleep!’ the Old Man echoed with mock shock. He asked the girl her age.
‘Twenty-three,’ she giggled.
Indeed, she did not look a day over 12. She was a graduate. She was the product of an education that had left her intellectually dead, unimaginative and incurious.
At 23, what was the Old Man doing?
Forty-one years ago, the Old Man was languishing in his wilderness years. He had an irrelevant degree from a prestigious university. He drifted from one low-prestige job to another low-prestige job. It was easy in those days to bluff one’s way into a job, especially if one looked the part: mechanic, packer or laboratory technician. He rarely read a book. He had shacked up with a bubbly woman who turned out to be a control freak. For two years they made each other miserable and kept each other on edge with stony silences, angry outbursts and floods of tears. He had intellectually flatlined.
‘If you want to get something out of this job, read,’ the Old Man advised. ‘Make yourself an expert on something. Tell yourself: This month, I’m going to become an expert on…erm…birds of East Africa.’
Bliss stared blankly at the Old Man. She was a graduate. Why should she read or do any research now? After her studies, she never wanted to see a book again.
‘What interests you?’ he asked.
Bliss thought this was a strange question. School and university had wrung out any interest she might have felt for anything. She trotted out the same essays as everyone else. She applauded the poets, praising their use of figures of speech, yet she had hardly the faintest idea what the poets were on about. Now she was a journalist, not budding but withering even before she started. Yet, the Old Man was on at her for being unimaginative. She scarcely understood why he was working himself up to a frenzy. She passed her little pink tongue over the braces on her teeth. It was 3.46, but he lectured the girl on how the weekly edition of the paper was different. The weekly was an opportunity to be creative, unlike the straight reporting of facts and events the rest of the week. Bliss had heard about the Old Man’s rewriting colleagues’ copy. He hardly understood why Bliss’s peers became so tearful and upset when they saw what he had done to their stories. His line was: “I haven’t changed everything. Your ideas are still there. Anyway, it’s got your byline. Wouldn’t you like the paper to receive letters saying your piece was inspiring and entertaining?”
The Old Man recalled a time when he was 12 years old at school. He handed in a piece of writing of which he was proud. His teacher looked at it and highlighted every misspelling and inserted missing punctuation. Every red ballpoint stroke on the boy’s copy felt like a whiplash. The author went back to his place and wiped away the tears. Incensed by the teacher’s overreaction, the student rewrote the piece in a rage at home. He imagined himself slamming the new script in front of the offending teacher. In his mind’s eye he saw himself telling the teacher: “I’ll show you, you pig!” However, his imaginings stayed in his head. Two days later the teacher had died of a heart attack. Now it was 3.51. He excused himself and finished his page two assignments. Bliss left the office and floated off down the corridor.
He opened Bliss’s piece about the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic printing press. He felt remorse for having grilled the girl. She was such a sweetie who wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose. She was no babe. She was a baby who should be dandled and lightly squeezed. She was like a fledgling that had been kicked out of the nest and left at the mercy of people like the Old Man. On hitting the ground, her intellect was broken and was unlikely to mend any time soon. Then he put finger to keyboard and completely rewrote her piece. He did not change any of the ideas, though.
Mentor(Simon Willis)
The Old Man opened the document labelled ‘Finance’ at 3.20 p.m. and ran his eye over the first paragraph. The deadline was forty minutes away. The words danced but conveyed no meaning. They did not care about time. He looked up to the young man standing on his left. This young whelp could never have produced the verbal mush.
‘You didn’t download this from somewhere, did you?’
The youngster looked quizzically at the Old Man.
‘Tell me you didn’t write this,’ the oldster said, tempted to add ‘crap’.
The younger man’s face darkened. He felt as if he had been accused of a heinous crime. The Old Man did not wait for an answer and looked back at the screen. He re-read the first paragraph. He tried to tease meaning out of the sentences. For this reader, there was none. He sighed impatiently.
‘And this is for page two?’
‘I think so,’ Gbégbé simpered.
‘You think so,’ the Old Man sneered.
‘Do you want to see the original?’ the younger man offered.
‘Will it make any difference?’
‘It might do.’
‘Yeah, it might do,’ the oldster snarled.
The Old Man had been working on the newspaper for 20 years. The newspaper was distributed to the embassies and hotels where foreign businessmen stayed. Otherwise, visitors would have no access to the local press. Two years ago, he was given the responsibility for page 2. The paper’s page two comprised local news and features culled from local publications, translated into English, edited and finally slapped in. Occasionally, he would be lumbered with a 2,000-odd word assignment which conveyed nothing. The author of the original was probably told to fill a space and never mind the reader. The translation would be as opaque and as verbose as the original. Regardless of quality, page two had to be ready by 4 p.m.
The chief editor insisted. He ignored excuses about poor-quality writing. He wanted his spaces filled and never mind the reader. The old man world-wearily sighed again.
‘This is complete and utter bollocks!’
Gbégbé was not going to ask what ‘bollocks’ meant, but he sensed the b-word was not a compliment.
‘I mean, this bit: The new system will be established within the framework of expedient procedures to ensure the efficacy and effectiveness of the gradual implementation of digitisation and mechanisation. What the hell does that mean?’
Gbégbé shifted his weight and quoted the original text, which was just as unintelligible. The old Man interrupted him and asked the naïve, nerdy translator to explain in “simple terms” what it all meant.
‘And don’t quote the original to me!’
The Old Man was running out of steam and time. Meanwhile, Gbégbé was itching to leave the office.
‘Anything else you need?’ he muttered.
At 3.27, the Old Man ignored him, scrolled the text back to the beginning, and resolved to do as little to the text except to tidy it up for grammar and punctuation.
At 3.31, the electricity went off.
The Old Man stared at his reflection in the blank screen. His jowls sagged with despair. The grey hairs on his earlobes were getting longer. What a stupid place to have hair, he thought. At least he had a full head of mousey hair. He was reasonably well preserved for his 66 years. His piercing blue eyes watched the world with cynicism and contempt. Indeed, he knew the price of everything and the value of nothing, but still he felt ripped off. His belt buckle bit into the rolls of flesh barely concealed by the loose-fitting tomato-red tee-shirt. As he was adjusting his anatomy, the ‘Jujitsu’ logo appeared cheerfully in the left-hand corner of the screen. He opened the ‘Finance’ file, on which the changes had not been saved. He swore. He sensed that someone heard his profanity. It was 3.34.
She hesitated to ask the question that has been forming in her head. She had written an article for the ‘Interesting Places’ column of the paper’s weekly edition. The Old Man looked up at her challengingly. The petite figure smiled, but not too widely because she was still self-conscious about the braces on her teeth.
‘Did you get my piece?’
‘What piece, Bliss?’
‘I sent it you two days ago.’
‘What did you call it?’
‘Interesting Places.’
‘Was it about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?’
‘It’s for the column in the weekly paper.’
The Old Man sighed. He wished people would label their files clearly. He did remember going through a piece about ancient Egyptian writing. Bliss squinted behind her kiddie’s spectacles and looked closely at the Old Man’s machine. The file in question was opened. Bliss looked puzzled. The oldster assured her that the file was hers.
‘You’ve changed a few things,’ she remarked trying not to sound disappointed.
‘Of course, I have. You want people to read your work, don’t you?’
The Old Man turned to face her.
‘Did you actually go to this place and interview this person about the hieroglyphics printing machine?’
Bliss looked uncomprehendingly.
‘It’s not a trick question!’
She could not believe that someone was asking such a question. Yes, she had gone to that place and interviewed that question.
‘Well, whomever you interviewed didn’t seem to know anything about anything much. Ask someone who’s there looking at the exhibits. The news is about people, not cardboard idiots behind desks.’
The Old Man knew he was bullying the sweet little thing. She looked lost in the office. She roused affection tinged with pity. However, she had done what was asked of her: an article about a museum that had an ancient Egyptian printing press. Why was this old man making such a fuss? She had done her best.
‘Did you do any research before you went on this assignment?’ He assured her that this was not a trick question, but he knew she had not. She knew he suspected she had not. Meanwhile, Gbégbé’s nonsense article lingered on the desktop. Only 20 minutes to go before the deadline for page two. More stories for editing were piling up in the Old Man’s inbox. But he felt compelled to bully the little sweetie, who pressed her lips tighter. She wished the Old Man would let her go. Her nostrils flared like an irritated kitten.
‘Can you describe to me at least three ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols,’ he challenged. The Old Man flashed a list of symbols on his screen.
‘Are these Egyptian hieroglyphs?’
‘I think so.’
‘Sorry, Bliss. Trick question. This is the Phoenician alphabet.’
Bliss said nothing. The Old Man launched into a lecture about the Rosetta Stone, a piece of basalt on which the inscriptions were the key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian scripts. Then he went on to tell her about the importance of doing research and preparing questions before an interview. Did she have an idea of what she would ask the ignoramus sitting behind an intimidating desk? He did not give her time to answer because he assumed the answer would be ‘no’. Otherwise, she might have protested and actually pull up a list of questions on her smart phone, on which she might have recorded the interviewee’s replies.
‘What’re you reading at the moment?’
Bliss had no idea what he meant. The Old Man reached for a novel on his desk.
‘I’m reading that on the underground, an hour here and an hour back home: ten hours’ reading per week. How do you come to work?’
‘By train.’
‘And how long does it take?’
‘Two hours.’
‘And what do you do on the train?’
Bliss grinned with embarrassment. The answer she would give would not be music to the Old Man’s ears.
‘Sleep.’
‘Sleep!’ the Old Man echoed with mock shock. He asked the girl her age.
‘Twenty-three,’ she giggled.
Indeed, she did not look a day over 12. She was a graduate. She was the product of an education that had left her intellectually dead, unimaginative and incurious.
At 23, what was the Old Man doing?
Forty-one years ago, the Old Man was languishing in his wilderness years. He had an irrelevant degree from a prestigious university. He drifted from one low-prestige job to another low-prestige job. It was easy in those days to bluff one’s way into a job, especially if one looked the part: mechanic, packer or laboratory technician. He rarely read a book. He had shacked up with a bubbly woman who turned out to be a control freak. For two years they made each other miserable and kept each other on edge with stony silences, angry outbursts and floods of tears. He had intellectually flatlined.
‘If you want to get something out of this job, read,’ the Old Man advised. ‘Make yourself an expert on something. Tell yourself: This month, I’m going to become an expert on…erm…birds of East Africa.’
Bliss stared blankly at the Old Man. She was a graduate. Why should she read or do any research now? After her studies, she never wanted to see a book again.
‘What interests you?’ he asked.
Bliss thought this was a strange question. School and university had wrung out any interest she might have felt for anything. She trotted out the same essays as everyone else. She applauded the poets, praising their use of figures of speech, yet she had hardly the faintest idea what the poets were on about. Now she was a journalist, not budding but withering even before she started. Yet, the Old Man was on at her for being unimaginative. She scarcely understood why he was working himself up to a frenzy. She passed her little pink tongue over the braces on her teeth. It was 3.46, but he lectured the girl on how the weekly edition of the paper was different. The weekly was an opportunity to be creative, unlike the straight reporting of facts and events the rest of the week. Bliss had heard about the Old Man’s rewriting colleagues’ copy. He hardly understood why Bliss’s peers became so tearful and upset when they saw what he had done to their stories. His line was: “I haven’t changed everything. Your ideas are still there. Anyway, it’s got your byline. Wouldn’t you like the paper to receive letters saying your piece was inspiring and entertaining?”
The Old Man recalled a time when he was 12 years old at school. He handed in a piece of writing of which he was proud. His teacher looked at it and highlighted every misspelling and inserted missing punctuation. Every red ballpoint stroke on the boy’s copy felt like a whiplash. The author went back to his place and wiped away the tears. Incensed by the teacher’s overreaction, the student rewrote the piece in a rage at home. He imagined himself slamming the new script in front of the offending teacher. In his mind’s eye he saw himself telling the teacher: “I’ll show you, you pig!” However, his imaginings stayed in his head. Two days later the teacher had died of a heart attack. Now it was 3.51. He excused himself and finished his page two assignments. Bliss left the office and floated off down the corridor.
He opened Bliss’s piece about the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic printing press. He felt remorse for having grilled the girl. She was such a sweetie who wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose. She was no babe. She was a baby who should be dandled and lightly squeezed. She was like a fledgling that had been kicked out of the nest and left at the mercy of people like the Old Man. On hitting the ground, her intellect was broken and was unlikely to mend any time soon. Then he put finger to keyboard and completely rewrote her piece. He did not change any of the ideas, though.
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Joel Kiula
01/17/2024That was hard to take if you can not take criticism easly. Good thing she was able to hold it in but i think we should find ways to help others without bullying them.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Cheryl Ryan
01/17/2024This story is brilliant. I like how the author collected real-life scenarios of editing, the drama that goes on among article writers and editors in the press into an organised knowledge for us to read.
Thank you for sharing.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Lillian Kazmierczak
01/15/2024A sad but true reality in writing. l have seen it a hundred times and been the victim of it. He didnt change her ideas...yeah right. An eye opening piece on the real world of writing. Funny how he thought he was helping her as bullied her and made her feel small. A sobering short story star of the week!
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COMMENTS (4)