In developing the previously mentioned Decision Paper for a meeting I had set up with some VPs and the CIO at my company, my boss' boss requested that I "collaborate" with him on the development of the document. Little did I know that the word "collaboration" has become office slang for "I write up a bunch of issues with a paper you create and leave the editing and interpretation to you."
The exchange went something like this:
- Me: Please review this draft number 1.
- Bob: I have updates. Update a, b, and c. Can you get these into the document?
- Me: I have updated. Please review this draft number 2. Feel free to update within the document itself using change tracking.
- Bob: Looks good. I have some more updates: d, e, and f. We'll see how it all looks in the next iteration of the document. (Note to reader: for those of you that don't work in bureaucracies, corporate communication has become more akin to printing textbooks.)
- Me: I have updated. Please review this draft number 3. I have interpreted your grammatically-incorrect, half-complete, typographical error-prone sentences and updated the document, which you could have done yourself in the first place, since you are the only editor. Congratulations - you have effectively wasted half of my day.
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