People who know us know that I couldn’t ask for a better partner than Jackie; we’re complete opposites, which is apparently a very good thing. We go back now more than 10 years – a lifetime in this business – and have had our fair share of celebrations and setbacks. Fortunately, there have been far, far fewer of the latter! Like all partnerships, we’ve had our share of tense moments, but we always manage to quickly work through them and keep the business on track. There is no one in business I trust more.
Jackie also is a very gifted editor. I have never encountered anyone who could massage copy with the skill and deftness as she can, not even during my earlier years as a professional journalist. She can make words sing off the page, as they say. Jackie, never afraid to rein in my passion when warranted, has saved me from embarrassment on more occasions than I care to admit. Her record on this score is almost impeccable: she has only let me down once.
The year was 2001. While on a visit to San Francisco, I came across an issue of SF Weekly that featured three women striking a Charlie’s Angels pose on the cover. It turns out they were tech sector headhunters. Their big secret to finding potential job candidates? If memory serves, they would go partying wherever dot-commers liked to hang out. The story irked me because it celebrated these women as industry leaders, when I viewed them as the embodiment of the ills dragging the sector down. I found the article sufficiently outrageous that on my return flight home, I drafted a letter to the editor.
As always, I asked Jackie to review the letter before sending it. She cleared it with nary a punctuation change, a highly unusual event. I recall she was annoyed with me at the time, although I don’t remember over what issue. So I sent the letter.
Admittedly, the letter was a tad too passionate. Although Jackie vehemently denies it, I believe that she made a cold, calculated decision to let me hang that one time, figuring not much harm could come from me sounding a little over the top to readers of a free alternative weekly in San Francisco.
But this is the Internet age, and if you google my name and SF Weekly, that letter shows up in all its glory, as does the editor’s snarky introduction to it: “Choose one: This reader (that would be me) recently had a bad experience with A) a pretty woman, B) a job recruiter, C) A and B.”
I’m painfully reminded of this bombastic letter every time I’m in San Francisco. Thanks to Google, it will no doubt haunt me forever. Or at least until I get my payback. Hmmm…
7 of 9
- Googling Weak Journalism
- The Irony of the New York Minute
- Out of the City and Into the Woods
- Seeking a Cure for The San Francisco Treat
- Top 10 Ways to Help Hotels Go Greener
- Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part One)
- Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part Two)
- If You Are Going to San Francisco
- A Demonstration We Can Do Without
12:55 pm
…”I believe that she made a cold, calculated decision to let me hang that one time…”
Who me? Naaah — you know I’ve always got your back ;).