This past weekend, while I was reading the bartending course manual, I kept seeing all these typos and errors. I tried hard to ignore them and move on, but I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m sorry, but I don’t think a course manual for bartending, that hundreds of students view monthly, should spell brand names of alcohol wrong. It’s Absolut Vodka, not Absolute Vodka! Apple Pucker, not Apple Puckers! And when you make a point that 1 drink = 5 oz. wine = 12 oz. beer = 1.25 oz. hard liquor, and you want to say that it takes a person’s liver 1 hour to work through each of the above, you shouldn’t say “Alcohol is metabolized in the body at a rate of about 1 ounce per hour for the average person.” It should be 1 drink per hour. (I pointed this last one out to the instructor the 2nd week and asked for clarification, and he was at first confused but realized the error and said I was the only one who’d ever caught that.) If you know me you’ll know what an editor at heart I am. Dwaine just lovingly refers to that trait of mine as “neurotic.”

So this weekend, after pages and pages of errors, I lost self-control. I emailed my instructor.
Hi Dan!
This is Cindy from your Tuesday evening bartending class. But enough about me. (ha.) I was reading over the course manual and saw some minor errors and inconsistencies that can easily be corrected. I was an editor and copywriter some years ago, so things like typos, misspellings and syntax problems jump out and wave at me. Your website, by the way, is error-free and very impressive that way; it’s rare to see perfect language usage these days, especially online. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like me to mark up a copy of the manual with editing corrections so your next print/publication of the manual would be cleaner. I’m not soliciting and I’m not charging you anything, I just like to see clean professional copy and thought I could offer you a skill and help you out. I hope I’m not offending you; I’m not passing judgment on the contents at all. Just a tiny bit on the presentation. Haha.
Cindy

Soon, I received a reply.
Hi Cindy,
Thanks for the suggestion. I would like to review these issues with you next time we meet. Thanks for your support.
Best, Dan

Okay, so I think he wasn’t offended. I approached him after class on Tuesday. “Oh, you’re the one!” he said. “I wanna sit down with you and talk about the changes.” After a brief discussion, I realized he’s pretty computer illiterate and I decided it’d be faster for me to mark up a copy of the manual with the suggested corrections, give it to him for approval, and then he’ll give me the computer text files of the manual and I’ll make the changes myself. He was very receptive and excited. And here’s the best part. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he insisted. “I’ll give you a whole bar set. With the tray for the garnish swords and straws and stuff. How’s that?” I loved that! Since gym trainee was standing next to me, he said to her, “I’ll give you a complete set, too. That way you won’t be all mad and jealous that she [nodding toward me] got one.”
Gym trainee said, “I won’t be jealous!”
I was like, “Shhh, he’s giving out free stuff!”
And then he offered to throw in free DVDs for Flair bartending techniques! Throwing bottles and fancy tricks! I knew my neuroticism would pay off one day!