Bruce Kerr: On his exasperated editor

As an inconsistent and lazy wannabe columnist there is one thing I understand and know well: passive aggression. Most often seen flooding my inbox at about 12 am on a Monday night: the night my column is due, the night I make a one Sophie Anim, Columns Editor for The Stand, wait and wait. There’s no doubt about the fact that she’s there for my own good, to make sure I cross my t’s and dot my i’s (pretty easy to do on a computer, but you catch my drift). She’s also on-hand to restrict me from being overly offensive or ridiculous which is essential as my style can only be described as flow of consciousness. In short, she is there for my benefit. Yet I still make her wait, and suffer while I churn out another masterpieceofcrap. While I hesitate to be presumptuous, I suspect she has better things to do than wait up into the small hours for me to be finished. So she tries to push me using minimal verbal force to speed up. And as hard she tries; she cannot mask what she is really trying to say. For passive aggression is a tricky business, and I can read right through her sugar-coated emails.

Below is a genuine e-mail followed by the passive aggressive true meaning behind the words:

“Hey Bruce,

Hope you had a good weekend! Was just wondering if your column will be ready by tonight? Also it would be great if you could come to the meeting tomorrow at 5:45pm at The New Brewery on South St. as I still haven’t met you yet.

Big Stand-y love,

Sophie”

 Oi you!

Hope you had a good weekend (writing a bloody column). Was just wondering when you would finally get off your arse and send me something? Also tonight we’re having a Stand meeting, you know, the ones you always fail to attend? Yeah, those ones. It’s at the same time and place it has been every Tuesday since I started telling you to attend. It’s important that I meet you so that I know whose face to visualize when I’m kickboxing at the gym. 

I resent you and your time management skills,

Editor (your boss) 

I’m sorry Sophie. I’m sorry that The Stand’s 3-street-wide-search for writing talent resulted in me flopping onto The Stand’s doorstep like a Hamish McHamish on a comedown. I’m sorry that I send my columns in with all the haste and urgency of a snail on a treadmill. Sorry not sorry.

Big Column-y love, (Column-y and Stand-y both aren’t words I might add.)

Bruce