Lesson Learned: Quality Assurance Edition

As anyone on a law journal or law review will tell you, most of it is a privilege. You get an office, away from the rest of your fellow students, you get to work with practitioners and professors, you get to (potentially) publish. The downside is that you have to write a comment. And edit other people's writing.

It's the second one that's really the kicker. If you're not some sort of sadist that just enjoys cutting other people's attempts to ribbons, while coating a Word document in red comment boxes, then sitting for several hours in front of a computer and pouring over the minutiae of the all-knowing Bluebook is probably not your idea of fun. It's particularly annoying when there are obscure sources...as in ones only available on microfiche. Now, if you read this blog, you know my feelings on microfiche. It's not a thing that you should have to actively seek out in order to finish an assignment. Technology exists for a reason. Hell, you can get most books in PDF form.

Luckily, I have devised a way to make this mind numbingly awful task less horrid. It involves having Top Gear or The West Wing on while going about your business. You should also have snacks and beverages near. By snacks and beverages I mean a glass of wine, mineral water (I'll describe my bizarre obsession with that at some other time), tortilla chips, and enchiladas. It's the perfect balance of crunchy (for wakefulness), nutritional (for lack of hunger pains), hydrating (important when awake for many hours), and soothing (for allowing irritation to sublimate into mere annoyance).

The point is that, at some point, doing a QA assignment will feel like this:

And, once you reach that level of delirium, it's time to take a break. That's where Top Gear comes in. It's unobtrusive enough to remain on without greatly distracting you, but interesting and entertaining enough to actually take your mind away from the task at hand when it's break time.

Before you know it, the deadline will be nigh upon you. Let's face it, I don't think anyone can create perfect Bluebook citations, because real sources are never as clean and easy as the examples in the Bluebook. So, by the time you're done, it won't be perfect, but by god, that article will be as good as it is going to get in your mostly competent hands. You will, however, feel as if you spend 12 hours straight doing this:

The point is that this system will make it less than awful. So, winning?