I came home from teaching a class about colons and semi-colons to read this essay. It's the best piece I've seen on Salon in ages (what's up with so much _politics_?). Thanks, Melissa, and please excuse any errors in this letter (such as the use of underscore marks for italics and the question mark-parenthesis-period combo). I'm sort of tired right now.

Sorry, but the only thing similar to wiping down tables at Burger King is . . . wiping down tables at Burger King.

I'm not waxing poetic about menial labor. I'm saying it sucks and it's disappointing how many middle class people can't tell the difference.

Quoth drinkwater: I'm not waxing poetic about menial labor. I'm saying it sucks and it's disappointing how many middle class people can't tell the difference.

How sure are you that the writer has never done menial labor? How sure are you that the writer is middle class? Maybe she is, but do you know that she's always been?

No, you probably don't.

Proofreading is the literary equivalent of wiping tables at Burger King. It's called cleaning up the mess created by software or an author who has written five drafts of the book and by that time has little hope of spotting the small stuff to clean it up.

And, I do know whereof I speak. I've had ten books published, number eleven is in the pipeline; I've lost count of the number of short stories.

I have wiped tables, too.

Yep, the former is great and the latter sucks. Probably Ms. Holbrook Pierson knows that, too.

Ms Pierson must have enjoyed José Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon where the proofreader protagonist intentionally changes one word and thus retroactively the course of history . . .

i hate it. i think it's not required. i think it's cosmetic. i think it slows things down. i, come to think of it, enough about what i think. what does melissa think of capitalisation? cheers and think you very much for replying.

What a pointless, solipsistic article. Sadly it seems to reflect a trend at Salon: the smug and mediocre personal essay. (At least it's sincere and not the tongue-in-cheek tripe you get from the McSeeney's crowd.) Salon became successful because it published only the best essays and feature stories. Please return to form.

If fact, proofreading is an honorable employment.

Dang! I got told! She *did* know the difference!

Yet another thing I love about the midddle class; They can't tell the difference between a tourist's preview and the real thing. Up-and-coming writers work as busboys and waiters and complain about how hard it is to be poor. Poor is when you can't go to the hospital, even though your stomache hurts so bad that you can't get out of bed. Middle class is when you call your parents and they pay. Poor is when you bicycle because you don't have a car. Middle class is when your $500 Trek replaces your (college graduation) Honda Civic because you've decided that you need to tone up. Poor is working as a waiter. Middle class is working as a waiter until you decide to go back to grad school. Poor is not a choice.

If you're educated enough to be a spell-checker and have three books under your belt, chances are-- CHANCES are that you didn't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps anymore than our dear President.

Do you know something that I don't? I doubt it.

Geez...

Thanks alot for degrading the professionalism and high value of proofreaders to the advertising, retail and publishing industries. Those of us who are established if not wealthy - writers who publish novels and lecture and pen political essays and travel the world, who receive academic and popular respect in our fields, and yet - gasp! -in between the bigger checks have a pleasant enough time relaxing by proofreading for our usually appreciative clients.

Proofreading is Zen work to me - meditative and brain sharpening. I have had a roster of my own clients [major industry leading companies] for a decade and a half, which have helped to support my creative works just as long [much to my husband's relief]. I certaintly don't see my proofreading work as "Burger King work". Why would I? Aside from my own passionate pursuits in creative fields, I am a skilled professional with something to offer outside this realm. I enjoy stepping out of my milleu to see the inside of corporate America from time to time. It is a nice place to visit, but... you get the idea. Proofreading, in fact, serves as a forceful reminder to me that I don't belong in that world as anything more than an occassional collaborator. It motivates me to work more and harder at what really matters to me - while also providing a professional service that keeps my family's finances more stable than they might otherwise be.

The clear majority of fellow proofreading freelancers I come accross are doing just fine themselves, thank you very much - but then again, we are in New York City. In the past few months alone, I've gotten invites from several I worked among [and who also continue to proofread] to their various gigs at Lincoln Center, debuting their new self-writtern one-woman Off-Broadway shows and more than a few book release parties - not to mention postcards from Alaska and Mauritius.

Unlike other gigs that creative folks tend to take on throughout their working years, proofreaders - in my experience, if not yours - are treated as knowledgeable professionals. Indeed, our clients don't need reminding that we regularly save their proverbial behinds, on countless occassions, when otherwise the tiniest error in punctuation or a bad linebrake could have wrecked their own rep in an instant. [Proofreaders to the rescue!]

As we work among the cubicle-chained corporate folks who hire us, we sense that it'd be almost too cruel to let them in on the REAL reason we can't come back next week to proof their big ad campaign for that Sock company - i.e., because we're going to be at a writer's retreat in Vermont or spending a month on the beaches of Moorea or sailing up to Nova Scotia, writing that next screenplay.

No one is stopping you or any other proofreader from doing the same.

Meanwhile, I cringe at the thought that next time I step into a new client's office to proof their technical manual or fashion catalogue, they may have read your words in Salon and taken their view of us down more than a few notches. Then, all the professionalism we strive to impart - not just personally, but for the profession as a whole - will have been shot to hell. Thanks a lot.

*This message is being posted without proofreading ;-)