Trim Away

One of the more fascinating aspects of my job involves reviewing and providing feedback on marketing material prior to it being sent out in postcards that get thrown away or via emails that get deleted. I must've done a thousand of these in the past year, but rarely do I get comments on my feedback. Typically, I get a "thanks for the notes. We'll make sure that we take these into account" email, but never anything specific. I started to suspect that no one reads these things. As annoying as that would be, it would also be a relief -- in the future, I could just sit on these requests, reply back with a Looks Good, and be secure in the knowledge that no one would have read 'em anyway. But I needed proof before I could act!

About a week ago, I reviewed a stack of material and made my usual comments. But as part of my commentary, I put in a line that read,"Photo of man on his laptop needs to have excessive nose hair photoshopped out." I had forgotten all about that until today. Sometime after lunch, my instant messenger came to life with a message from my marketing communications colleague: Great catch! she wrote. So which nostril are we talking? After writing back something incoherent about how excessive nose hair has been linked with fatty foods and partaking of too much grain alcohol, I sheepishly logged off. My faith in the system is renewed! Someone does read these things!