To fill out my last timecards, I had to look back the stories I wrote this pay period. While doing this, I noticed a major meaning-changing error that someone added into my story. This makes me incredibly angry. I know it wasn’t Christina, because I was watching over her shoulder while she edited and talked with her about that part.

Also, it was not ambiguous. Someone added a bracketed phrase to a quote that makes it incorrect. Editors: Do not change quotes without checking with the writer! Especially if the writer is sitting like 10 feet away from you! Especially don’t change quotes without at least reading carefully!

It makes me that much angrier because this now-misquoted person had previously called me about a genuine error in a story that was my fault for being sloppy on deadline (that none of my editors caught).

OK, now it’s time to get over it. But damn, that makes me angry. I beat myself up pretty hard about not getting errors, and to have someone else add them in without even trying to check with me really undermines my will to do this anymore.