Benjibopper

The megalomaniacal managing editor gave more than the obligitory second chances to the blind proofreader, but the latter simply couldn't kick his habit.

Perhaps the final straw should have been when the editor sent his proofreader on a drug buy/sting, a high-level high-risk expose to show how high on the hierarchy the dealer resides. It made so much sense to the editor to send a drug addict on this errand that he sent two: the proofreader and a reporter, both of whom had recently kicked.

"It gave the operation more authenticity," the editor would later bemoan. "We figured that they would know how to make a buy."

Perhaps they knew all too well; they came home in a profusely sweating mess two weeks later with no money, no drugs, and no story.

But that wasn't the final straw; the blind proofreader still rambles through the hallowed halls of nationalist journalism spewing one-liners at a mile-a-minute, sweating like banshees had ransacked his pituitary glands all night, cracking up the graffic designers.

"Do you still work for me?" the editor sometimes asks. "I haven't seen you and I never know where you are. Are you sure you work for me?"

The proofreader smiles and reassures him,"Yes yes Sir, I've been recovering from illness but I am still at your service, one hundred percent ready to follow all orders and reflect your own opinions back to you."

Labels: 2007, Africa, non-fiction, Workplace Boredom