Skip to main content

Jay Has A Rule #1: Be Nice To The Receptionist

In the course of reading my blogroll over the holiday weekend, I came across this post from MoonRat over at Editorial Ass. You should really read it, but the long and the short of it is that some author shot himself in the foot by suggesting, repeatedly and vociferously, that Someone More Important Than MoonRat should be looking at his book.

Whoops.

Which leads me to the first rule in my occasional series Jay Has a Rule.

Rule One: Be Nice To The Receptionist.

In my Real Life, I'm a lawyer. For those of you who haven't had the personal pleasure of knowing a lawyer, the legal profession has more than its fair share of Jerks Who Think They Are More Important Than You. The guy who cuts you off on the highway? The woman who screams at the server when she gets ice in her drink and she "specifically said no ice!"? The man who gives you a dirty look when he bumps into you on the sidewalk because he's yapping on his phone? I bet you ten bucks two out of three of them are lawyers.

I have my theories about why this is true, but this post is neither the time nor the place. The point is that these people are rude. Especially to people they think are beneath them (which is most everyone). But my personal experience is that being nice to people who are "beneath me"* is likely to get me better results that being a jerk to them.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not one of those "catch more flies with honey" people. I don't have that in me. I'm less "sugar and spice" and more "walk softly and carry a big stick." More than one opposing counsel has muttered an unflattering name as I left the conference room, and one hapless guy accidentally forwarded me an email in which he referred to me as a "b**ch on wheels." It's all part of the territory of being a woman lawyer--my job is to represent my client, and if that means I have to break a few eggs**, well, that's what I get paid for.

But I've never had a receptionist refuse to take my message, or a server spit in my Coke (that I know of shiver), or made a secretary cry. That is NOT part of the job description. These people, I am nice to.

And this rule applies to waitstaff, and janitors, and customer service representatives, and everyone who some people would consider "beneath me."

So if I had been in this conversation with MoonRat, who is an editor, but not the Most Important Editor where she works, I might have asked her if Most Important Editor had read my project. Because as the author, I would want to know. (I would hope, in my heart of hearts, that he had, that the whole company had, that they couldn't put it down, because it was Too Awesome For Words, and they were going to pay me a BILLION DOLLAR advance, which, of course, I would earn out). But when she said no, I would have let it drop, because to do otherwise would be to suggest that she was "beneath me," which she is not.

That's what this author did. Not intentionally, assuming MoonRat's account is accurate, but still. He suggested that he was too important to go through the standard process involving the MoonRat step, and should instead be given a pass straight to the front of the line. Ummm...no. Sorry, man, but no. And I hope that your agent smacked you upside the head after that meeting because you just made her job a lot harder.*** You couldn't have screwed it up more unless you were a lawyer. :)

*whatever that means. I mean, really. What is this? 18th century England, for Pete's sake?

**heh. How many cliches can I work into this post, anyway? What is this? Number 5?

***I do not know who this author is, or his agent. MoonRat indicates that the author is male and I'm playing the odds guessing that his agent is female.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The easiest way to ensure that you don't get your way in life is to irritate the support staff at any job. These people are the cogs, gears, what-have-you, that really turn the wheels. I always tell my friends: be nice to the people at the bottom of the totem pole if you want anything to get done.

For the record, it's hard to imagine that anybody thought you were difficult to deal with during any negotiations. You're such a pussycat! OK, it's not THAT hard to imagine . . .

By the way, I love these "word verification" features to post comments: it's NEVER a word. Perhaps it should be called "random letter verification." Some day, it's going to be a word and I'm going to be surprised.

Popular posts from this blog

Monday Miscellany

1. I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing on Bravo lately, and have come to the conclusion that I love the character of Sam Seaborn. He's smart, he's earnest, he's a good writer, and he's played by Rob Lowe. What's not to love?* 2. I just bought the cutest jacket at Ann Taylor Loft. I know you care, but it's not every day that one can find a white denim jacket with styling reminiscent of Michael Jackson and a tailored waist. I'm just saying. 3. NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. There is no way that I'm going to be able to keep writing at this pace after this month is over, but I'm on track to finish. It's an interesting project...in some ways the speed is freeing and in other ways it's extremely limited, as to make the word count I have no time to go back and revise. 4. Alien and Aliens are amazing movies. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ? Not so much. 5. This week's Glee characterization inconsistency watch: Rache...

Jay Takes A Stand

Moonrat, still at Editorial Ass, is making me think a lot lately. She did a recent post here about sexualized violence in print ads, and connected the dots to sexualized violence in books and other media, which got me thinking about how I treat girls and women in my books. To be clear--I'm a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work and reproductive choice, and the whole ball of wax. I'm not going to go into detail about all that here because, frankly, there are people out there whose blogs are dedicated to that kind of thing (like Jezebel *) and they do it way better than I ever could. But that's my political orientation, in case you care. So when I was writing The Book, it was very important to me that my female protagonist S did not fall into any of those "heroine needs saving by the hero" tropes that so many books for teenage girls do. Sure, there's something very "romantic" about the hero swooping in and rescuing the heroine, right? ...

The waiting is the hardest part

As I mentioned, I entered the Fangs, Fur & Fey contest over on their blog (there's a link in the sidebar). And the results are supposed to be posted on Monday, which when all the hook writers would find out whether they should send in pages or not. Cool, cool. But, as it turns out, some of the judges are really on their game, and have been turning in entries earlier. Which have been being posted earlier. Which means that for the last two days I've been checking the website obsessively in the hope of seeing my magic number - 121 - up there. Which it has NOT been. 122 has gone up, but not 121. I'm trying to take this as a good sign. ::fingers crossed:: The contest itself has been real eye-opener. Good hooks, bad hooks, good hooks for books I would never read in a million years, bad hooks for books that I think I would love ... it's really cool. I also love the comments that the judges are making, which are usually right, but which also point out just how mu...