I spent my entire university career
working on my internal thesaurus. Always trying to come up with a newer,
fancier, more complicated word than the one before. Five years spent priding
myself on writing some of the most complicated papers on obscure topics and
filled with arcane facts. I was a history major, it came with the territory.
Then, like most of this class, I
graduate and enter the job market only to find…..drum-roll please……nothing.
Zip. Zilch. Nada. So I began my search into a career that would cater to my
skills, namely communications. Public relations was suggested to me and seemed
like a perfect fit. An entire job market focused solely on communicating, a
match made in academic heaven. I was over the moon. I would be able to utilize
my writing ability and extensive vocabulary which I spend five years honing.
Heck, I might even be able to show off a little! Joke was on me.
First week in I’m asked to write a
mission statement. A teeny, tiny, couple lines at most description that
explains my organization’s ENTIRE mission. I used to take up to twenty pages to
explain what people were doing and why. But okay, totally doable, I just needed
to adapt some. No biggie.
A few weeks later we were told to
write a product release. We had to sell a product, make it newsworthy, make it
something fascinating that will be catchy and get people to take notice. Ha!
That I can do! Take facts and present them in an engaging way that persuades
people see things my way? I have about ten 30+ page history papers that can
speak to my ability to do just that. But wait! It also has to be one page or
less and take no more than 30 seconds to read through. *sigh* While not the
toughest thing I’ve ever had to do, it certainly wasn’t a piece of cake. More
like a five tier wedding cake. But still, it was doable.
Then came readability. Write at a
level that is roughly ten years lower than the level that I had spent the last
decade of my life writing at. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? For the first time since learning
about decimals, I literally wanted to throw my assignment out the window.
Flesch and Kincaid officially became my least favourite people. Ever. But after
fighting with readability levels for the better part of an hour I managed to
succeed. I was down to a 6.8 and was just as proud of that as I was when I
completed my 34 page paper on the Spanish Reconquista.
Moral of the story: even when you
think you’ve completely mastered a skill there is always more to learn. Every
skill has multiple applications. There is never a limit to what you can do with
that skill. So you’ve learned how to write obscure 30 page historical papers?
Good for you. Now go learn how to write a proper 30 second news brief.
Never stop honing that skill and
never stop learning new ways to use it.
Challenge accepted!
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