Good things at work

So far in my work, I've typically had free reign rein to make content and copy edits as I saw fit on lessons written by contractors that I'd never speak to. But since another editor quit, I am working with more of our in-house writers, some for the first time on long reading passages which are not the type of content I've edited here before. So I worried whether my editing was too heavy handed or whether the curriculum team would want more feedback on content, which is not my strong suit since I don't have much teaching experience.

I took time to confer with the writer because I had a few questions about her intended meaning in some places where dialogue trailed off and on her use of ellipses versus dashes in those places and then made copious notes and edits, to a degree which would likely wound any young writer's ego, crossed my fingers, and sent it off.

A few days later, I ran into her in the break room and asked how her weekend went, and she took the opportunity to give thanks and gush about how great my corrections and comments were, how much she loved my suggestions, how much she was able to learn in the process on this one ~2700-word passage, and how much her supervisor (?*) loved my edits.

I was surprised, excited, and deeply humbled by her words, and it has made my day when I've lately been feeling down on my job and hating the commute and was really pissed off about being rear-ended on my way home last Friday. We were already slightly understaffed when half our editors quit in November, and I have been disappointed and stressed out over the increased workload ever since. But I set up a workable schedule today for all the projects in my queue so far through the end of the month and am feeling reinvigorated by this recent feedback.

I should have a review coming up at the end of the month, and with two fewer editors to pay and a serious need to keep us remaining two around, this will hopefully translate into beneficial offerings from the company then. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because I got a nice raise last year, but I need the money and probably even deserve it now. Someday I'll get to fulfill my dream of working freelance projects entirely from home for less than full time, but for now, everything is going to be OK.

*I don't know what to call a "managing writer" or what the other woman's official title is, but she oversees the work of this other writer and leads their team on certain projects.