Bar none

Today I was proofreading a text that included charts with data from the past ten years. There was nothing wrong with the layout or labels, but I suddenly realized that all previous texts from this client have not included pandemic-era data. This one did. I flagged it.

I have always argued with myself: Is this kind of observation the result of training or just plain luck? It’s hard for me to know. I feel sure that my studies taught me to think this way and equally certain that I could just as easily not have noticed.

So when the client replied, "THANK YOU for that catch! No one else noticed, and I agree that we need to explain it,” I tried to keep my pride in check. It’s not that I am better than the rest of the folks who looked at the text; it’s that we get a better result when we work as a team.

Read some other thoughts I’ve had about collaboration here and here.