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It’s been said that the only constant at PlattForm is change.

One can see this in the small things like the weekly hunt for any given Client Services’ member’s new office, and big things like the semi-frequent promotions and continual process changes.

It’s everything from a battle over e-mail vs. email to taking on entirely new tasks and making them second nature. PlattForm and the people who work here are malleable. We work with challenges and step forward to affect changes that cause ripples elsewhere.

This has never been so apparent as over these past few days, during one of the tougher weeks I’ve had in a long time. It’s true that proofing can be a thankless job. Sometimes, since we are behind the scenes, people forget that we have a part in the creative process. Sometimes that leads us to think that what we do doesn’t have an effect somewhere else.

So, what’s a manager to do? Round up the troops and remind them of the chain reaction everything creates. Of the vital importance each action has on things they might not even begin to imagine. In hindsight, reference Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder.

Self-worth can alter many things – job satisfaction, quality of work, quality of life, relationships, ambition and more. I see the beginnings of this already – a banding together of a team that may have lost its place a little; a renewed confidence that the job we do is one that can transform things.

It’s not so much that we need to remember to always affect change, but more that change always affects.

So, the proofing department might possibly have a reputation for being sticklers: pretty rigid about our proofing changes and as overprotective as new parents about grammar and language.

Because of that stigma (and, admittedly, it’s at least partially accurate), I’m proud of us for how well we’ve handled the complete overhaul of … well … everything we do in the past few months.

They have been mostly minor changes so far, with the exception of our new company network that will eventually house pretty much everything everybody does (It’s a monster that just keeps growing), but about three weeks ago our department changed its name and pulled in some new members, including a Director of Operations, Brian, whose primary job responsibility is to increase efficiency and trim the fat off of every single process in every single department.

I threw all caution to the wind and eagerly jumped on Brian’s bandwagon. I presented several ideas to him. He liked those ideas, so we pulled in the heads of the creative teams they’d be affecting. They liked our ideas, too. Now, to tell our respective teams.

At our proofer meeting the afternoon after we discussed these changes with the creative team heads, I broke the exciting news and really shook things up: In short, we’re cutting out a considerable amount of proofing. We’re reestablishing ourselves as a team that double-checks creative to make sure there aren’t any errors rather than a team that corrects all errors through to completion. We want to help the creative teams take real pride and ownership over their work and reduce the frustration that comes from delivering a print ad back and forth time after time after time. From a department that used to check changes through until a piece of creative was completely error-free, this was shocking news – I even got a dropped jaw in response, which I tend to think of as a dramatic movie reaction.

But it’s had a few days to sink in now, and I think that, come Monday when we put this into action, we’ll all be ready to go and explore new ground. And as Brian and I work with other teams, more big changes will happen and more jaws will drop.

And then we’ll adapt, because in PlattForm’s proofing department, we don’t rest on good enough. We strive for excellence, even when it means changing everything we know.

Rigid sticklers … pffft.

I’m not talking about the training courses Greg Kirsch offers on Thursdays, though they do relate to this blog further down. No, I’m referring instead to the revelation I had mere moments ago.

PlattForm’s like college.

I guess it’s kind of fitting, seeing as how that’s who we’re advertising for most of the time, but think about it. Our offices are kind of like dorms. We spend the majority of our time together getting to know each other. We go out after work to bars and see movies together and hang out like one would with their roommates. We discuss TV shows and our personal lives and even (don’t pretend like you don’t, too) work gossip. Sometimes the really nutty kids (who I suppose you could liken to students who spend all their free time at the library) are here into the wee hours of the morning. Our managers are our RAs and Michael’s the Dean of Students.

To further the comparison, we also have a vast array of extracurricular activities to choose from. In fact, I think I’m involved in more stuff here than I was when I was actually in school. I help copyedit and plan the Podium, the company’s monthly newsletter (school newspaper). I’m finishing up my term as a founding member of the Culture Club, a group in charge of keeping things fun and team-oriented. I also blog occasionally (as you can see). Furthermore, we participate in Corporate Challenge and philanthropic events, and most of our employees slouch around in jeans and t-shirts and flip-flops like they’re going to an early morning lab class. Not to mention that our desks are all littered with personal paraphernalia (I admit I have way too much kitsch on my desk) for a little taste of home.

Then there’s the aforementioned PlattForm University classes (some work has to be done in between all the socializing). I liken those to tutoring sessions. Are you struggling with something or just want to know more about a subject? Sign up for a class. Take some notes. Apply the teachings.

So, in some crazy way, we really know our audience. Granted, we target more career colleges that appeal to people already working or who have decided that going back to school is a great idea, but not so much the four-year universities. But I have to think that being in an environment that’s so much like one we’ve all already known puts us in the perfect mindset to focus on how to bring our experiences and successes to new students and help them make new futures for themselves.

It’s no secret that proofing is a tedious, monotonous, sometimes even (dare I say it?) boring job. There are days where we spend upwards of two hours proofing a single web site (oh, the link checking!) and big projects, so I’d think it comes as no surprise that sometimes, we get a little goofy.

That’s all fine and good – if you’re a proofer. Over the years we have learned that, unfortunately for them, not everyone shares our collective interests and/or sense of humor. Our past few presentations at our annual company meeting have been met with nothing but cricket chirps, even though we can barely get through them without gasping for air while wiping tears from our eyes.

It wouldn’t be a workday without some sort of obscenely horrible, head-shakingly bad play on words. I think my favorite to this day was courtesy of one Miss Cara Howard. While adding wasabi to some soy sauce to go with her sushi for lunch, she splattered some sauce on her hand. The appropriate commentary for this boo-boo was obvious, so she said it: “Oops! I soyed myself!” Most of the time when I relay this anecdote, I get a weak chuckle at best, while I turn purple in the face. Even now, I’m laughing quietly to myself.

We read grammar books for fun. I recently finished Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande (which I’m about to use to decide whether or not I should add an ’s to Truss below – the answer is yes) and giggled at her witticisms about the English language and word usage. Last year, one of us had a page-a-day calendar based on Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which she read aloud almost every day to our joyous enthusiasm.

As if that’s not enough, prominently displayed at the front of our room is what we lovingly refer to as The Wall of Shame. On it are some of the greatest misspellings, weird phrasings, and best ad revisions we’ve ever gotten. It’s almost like a ceremony when we add something new, which happens about once a week.

All of this contributes to a tight team bond, though. We get each other, so that makes it okay to make a stupid word joke, because we know at least six other people will laugh at it. That collective sense of humor, along with the empathy that comes with knowing how to step it up on supremely busy days so we all share an equal load, makes this proofing team close-knit and pretty much unstoppable. We work hard, but we can definitely play hard, too. Really, you could say we’re a whole lot of pun.