Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Strutting my skills on the runway

I've had my fabulous dinner with the models from Top Model on TV. I'm a little brain dead from spinning and work today. My coworkers noticed how verbose [or long-winded] I was; not getting to the point of my stories, plain tired. I'm just off today and I blame the weather. Ah. Let's get back to what's important.

I've cycled through a few proposed answers for our assigned homework. I'm so indecisive. Starring at page 55 # 3b, I've come to the conclusion that I don't understand the correct context. Maybe the ambiguity is "built in" so that there is not one right answer. I dislike long sentences. *Pout* The exercise hints at the approach: "revise the following sentences, replacing many of the Latinisms, unnecessary noun phrases, and jargon with plain language." Yes, you might have guessed that my cheeky blog name was spurred on by this assignment. [Passive voice. I used it to put focus on my cheeky blog name. Live with it!]

Without further ado [which is a petrified {fossilized like in stone} expression]:

I most certainly have it memorized by now.
#3b
In accordance with managerial policy, any intensification of effort on the part of employees leading to a maximization of production will be met with commensurate compensation.

  • In agreement with managerial policy, employees who output a maximum work effort will receive proportional payment.
  • Employees who work more than their scheduled hours will be rewarded with overtime pay.
  • Following our policy, all employee efforts that maximize our output will earn payments to match their efforts. [Sent as my final answer.]
Is my logic flawed? How do I quantify "employees"; is it any [an] employee of the group or the employees on the whole? If the latter is the case, that leads me to think that "maximization" can also refer to the final output or product as a whole. Although, a 'proportional pay' would more easily be understood to refer to a singular [one] employee, and that employee will get a directly proportional payment when compared to their [singular] work effort. It would be difficult to pay each employee a fair raise, overtime, or payment if the payment is based on a group effort. I think the correct way to interpret this, is to say that we are looking at one employee. Have I said that I never wanted to be a lawyer?

Sometimes I find it difficult to let go of my writing, worried about the criticism that I know I'll have to face eventually. Sadly, only hours earlier, I was criticizing the lanky, but somewhat pretty girls on Top Model as they were being judged for something that is very personal to them as well; their unique, edgy looks and their grace. I hope I can thrive off this writing challenge and handle the criticism. As you probably noticed, I tend to focus on the small details and not on the content of the message. I hope I can learn to see past those details to write quickly and concisely.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The book advises you to avoid or, more accurately, to be wary of "-ize" suffixed words. In the context of the sentence, "maximize" seems to allude to the efficiency of of the increase or the level of increase in the output, for example: the increase should be 10% over the projected numbers. The book cautions you about its use because in some cases "increase" can be synonymous with "maximize". In this case, "maximize" seems to be the best word for my imagined context.