Word-Girl (Where Have U Been?)

I was Word-Girl at my old job. This meant that, among the techy-geeks and businessy-folks with whom I worked at Northwestern Mutual (NM), I was at least sometimes acknowledged as the resident, self-appointed language expert. Or, to put it more realistically, I was known to my friends and co-workers as a person who cared deeply about things like spelling, grammar, literature and just generally finding the right word for any particular situation. The kind of person who would stop the conversation to say "oooh that's a good word" as they came up, and who relished the chance to spell a word for someone or - better yet - edit an email or entire document.

My husband still routinely asks me for help with spelling words, and I was tacit Word-Girl again for a milli-second at my last job as an Executive Recruiter, where I was asked how to spell - no joke - words like "informational" and "situation." Not a lot of PhDs at the Executive Recruiting gig, god love 'em, those salesy people.

Not the longer, more complicated words that I learned to love, while studying for the GRE, during and after college, the words that roll off the tongue with so much pleasure and more precise meaning than the shorter, more general versions. Words like "recalcitrant," "languorous," "mitigate," "anomaly" or even "in toto" (for you Latin-lovers and mentioned in homage of my equally literate ex-boss Rich).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recalcitrant
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/languorous
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mitigate
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anomaly
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/in+toto

Words I used (use) not to puff myself up or put anyone else down, not to intimidate or act like I'm-so-much-smarter, but just because I enjoy them. Does anyone else out there who loves words like me understand?!? I admit to still having trouble with the word "occasional" (I always want to spell it with TWO Ss) and one other word with double consonants that I can't remember off-hand, and I'm sure there's more than one mis-spelling in my blog posts ("mea culpa" for the Latin-lovers among my readers).

And then there's those words that can be spelled two different ways, and both are correct, such as the word mis-spelling itself - is it misspelling or mis-spelling - to hyphen or to not?! Dictionary.com isn't conclusive. (And don't even get me started on the English versions of words, like "realised," "favourite, " and "colour" etc.).

But I love it all, and I know that this is what I should be doing with my life, because they say when you're doing something and you lose track of time, it is your calling, no longer just a job. Now if only someone would pay me to spell words for them or critique their emails, I'd be set....

I aspire to become Word-Girl again, at the job I will hopefully get, as a QA Analyst at Jackson Hewitt. A place that, as I wrote to an old co-worker, and after my traumatic experience at Fucking ClickBooth (the only way I can think of it, from now on, almost like its own acronym! FCB) - "reminded me so much of NM I could have wept."

Just because (as I went on to write her) "I felt like I could fit in there, the atmosphere was so familiar" and since I am resigned to the fact that I have to work in Florida for a while, I am seeking a place to call work-home again, and I so hope that place could be it.

My final thoughts on the subject, in the email to my dear old co-worker/friend: "I guess I miss the familiar, at least when it comes to having to go to work again. I love the Florida Flip-Flop lifestyle but in terms of working, it sucks and I miss NM. It sounds crazy, when I always wanted to leave that place, but does that make any kind of sense?! I don't really expect u to understand, I'm just venting, or something. I never knew how good I had it, is what it comes down to."

And ah, there's the lesson again. There are words and there are Words, but there is no word quite like Regret. Or Hindsight. And no one (usually) needs any help to spell them.