Thanks for doing these! I need to learn this stuff, and use it. I have a few pieces just about ready to go now.

Obviously something touched a nerve, though.

From the conclusion of the saga:

The biggest disappointment was learning that, after all, it’s not only about the work on the page. / That the writing life is not a pure meritocracy, or a refuge from office politics. All that crap still matters. / Even at the top of the heap. Perhaps especially at the top of the heap. / Who knew?

I’d been thinking the word “duh” the whole time while reading this; that conclusion sealed it for me.

While Bauer is clearly a good writer, and highly valued by the periodicals he’s written for, he seems never to have done anything else. Otherwise, how could he be so naive as to think that getting along with people in a way that they’re used to getting along — “that crap” — should somehow not be a requirement for ANY job, including freelancing and “staff writing”? What makes the NYer and David Remnick so different from (say) the editors at Rolling Stone and the Wall St. Journal in this respect?

What makes them different is that Bauer brought his own expectations to the relationship and professes amazement that his expectations aren’t being met. Because, y’know, all those other people’s expectations may be crap but his own aren’t, right?

(Apparently RS’s and the Journal’s (and Playboy’s, etc.) editors and he are on the same page, so good for him on that score.)

To his credit, he does report that he made the following mistakes: [enumerations follow]. But then he insists that these wouldn’t have been mistakes if only other people had held the same values and behaved the same way as he himself.

Duh.

I’m sort of embarrassed for the writing profession that he’s apparently getting accolades for having tweeted all this, irrespective of the merits or faults of what he’s tweeting. Will be interesting to see others’ comments.