Call Me Skeptical Dept.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue May 15, 2007 7:10 am

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Why did I decide to move to Buenos Aires straight out of graduating from GW? Everyone asked me back in the States, and every Argentine I meet continues to inquire.

Had I ever been to Argentina? No. Did I have a job lined up for when I arrived? No. An apartment? Nope. Family, friends? Did I have any idea what I was going to do in a foreign country, alone and without any connections?

I could - and do - list many reasons for my decision to move abroad. I wanted a drastic change. I wanted to become fluent in Spanish. I wanted to travel. I wanted to avoid the reality that my career as a professional student was over. But more than anything, the single episode that motivated me to flee the comfort of the States was a box of latex gloves.

It was a Friday afternoon in mid-April when I had my first big job interview. It was the kind of job a journalism major salivates over: working as a copy editor for The Washington Post. In reality, copy editor was code for a job in the mailroom. My job: to open the reporters' mail and, to assist me in my work, my interviewer pointed to a large box of latex gloves. They were for my own protection, in case opening up the reporters' mail got messy or arsenical. (GW Hatchet)

miss msry · **Posted:** Tue May 15, 2007 10:38 am

I loved the years I lived in B.A., Argentina, but that's no reason to diss copy editors.

Not to mention that some of us lost friends to Anthrax.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Tue May 15, 2007 3:19 pm

I think she was dissing mailroom clerks. Where she got the notion that copy editors work in the Post mailroom is beyond me.

vtuss · **Posted:** Tue May 15, 2007 3:28 pm

Any possibility that she has confused being a copy aide with a copy editor?

As a GW and a Hatchet alum, though, I shake my head. Back in getting-older days, we sent a lot of folks to the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund program. (Myself included.) They should know what a copy editor is.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Tue May 15, 2007 10:23 pm

I too am a GW and a Hatchet alum. The paper had copy editors back in the late 1970s. And an editor from slightly before my time worked as a part-time Post copy editor before his graduation, if I remember correctly. (Now he lurks here.)

I majored in journalism and political science. Since then, the journalism program was replaced, as I understand it, by one that combined "communications" with political affairs.
Perhaps something was lost.

I'm perplexed. Perhaps vtuss has nailed it: "copy aide," not "copy editor."

Perhaps the term "copy editor" is fading away.

larepublica · **Posted:** Wed May 16, 2007 9:53 am

Wayne Countryman wrote:

I majored in journalism and political science. Since then, the journalism program was replaced, as I understand it, by one that combined "communications" with political affairs.
Perhaps something was lost.

.

The department was known as "Political Communications" when I was a student (late 80's). I graduated from the School of International Affairs. I noticed this (academic) year in particular that copy editing at the Hatchet was poor.

lfelaco · **Posted:** Wed May 16, 2007 11:53 am

Seems to me the joke's on her if misreading a job ad caused her to flee the country. Though said misreading tends to indicate she wouldn't have passed a copy editing test anyway. Still, what ever happened to the the concept of starting at the bottom and working your way up? I ended up working the same types of jobs I'd done in college for the first year or so after graduation till I got my first "real" job.

Testy Copy Editors

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