It is not personal, it's professional, and if you can not separate out the personal, you can't be a professional.
To wit:
Funny me. I want an engineer who can do solid math. An accountant who finds it more flexible ("How much is 2+2?" "How much do you want it to be?"). And a doctor who knows medicine.
I'm real picky about knots. Which, in most things, is not a big deal. But when you're hauling up $14K in a lighting unit, with a union brother or sister (or worse, a star) underneath, its a BIG, BIG deal. I do not want something like a bowline, or almost a bowline. I want a bowline.
Now, in PR (full disclosure here... I write speeches and make PowerPoints for people - big time corporate executives - in my down time, as a part of my income stream. It does not make me as much as my other work, but I'm sure it makes me as much as some people on these boards make in a year. So its not a simple matter. Nor do I take it as such, but I do know PR. And, I do try to remain mindful that people are buying me a lunch that costs more than a lot of people make in a day, and I try to live, and work, up to that standard.), as in academia, your work is judged by the printed words on the printed page.
I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds that misspelled words leap off the page at me. Or that sloppy use of language (especially in law, which, in the end, is all about words and definitions) is somewhat bothersome. When I play with the people I jam with, I might miss and hit the E and not the E minor. No big deal. If we were playing for 2K people who paid $45 bucks to see us. It is a big deal.
So words in PR, like knots to me in stagecraft, are very real, and tangible. I want a bowline because the more weight it takes, the tighter it holds in a very few twists of the rope. Simple, to the point, effective. Just like language. Precision in language is all you have in PR.
It's not a slam dear. It's a plea to use your best, in everything, all the time, and everywhere. If your job is to be precise in language, then do it every-time, all the time. My friends have me come over to do their home stereos. Not just because I have a drill that will go through several walls, but because I show up with cable ties, clippers, extra wire, and when I'm done, its done the same way I would do a stage - not one wire showing. Its not that I'm such a picky bitch, (I am) but that's just the way I do it, all the time, every-time.
And I will tell you why (something I almost never do, but in this case....). Once upon a time, the person who taught me so much of this told me (and this is an exact quote, because it matters so much to me - and because he gave this same lecture to everyone he worked with, which is half my crew - who, repeat it like a mantra.)
Kat, we do this every night the same way. We do it the same way every night. That way, no matter how messed up you are, you will do it in just that way. Every night. No matter what night, we do it the same way. That way, it's always the same.
So much for originality, but hey, the bowline wasn't original either. And the point was for the band to be original, not us. And we were precise. As an engineer you can dig on that. The mike for the lead singer/lead guitar player was to be 7 feet, 3 and 1/4 inches from the tip of the mike to the center of the amp. Did that 1/4 an inch matter? Sonically no. But as long as it was always 7' 3 1/4", then it was never ALMOST seven feet, or CLOSE TO seven feet, or A BIT MORE THAN seven feet. It was 7' 3 1/4" - no more, no less. Exact. Precise. Perfect.
It's about doing the best all the time, every time. Do we make it? Do I? Hell no. But at least I do try. I try hard not to write my posts in PhD language, thick impenetrable sentences that take a week to get through and even then your not really sure about what was said. I pride myself on being pretty easy to understand. When I say "Hillary Clinton is part of a criminal conspiracy." That's pretty hard to parse in any way other than I think she is a criminal who should be in jail. I may, or may not be right about that, (and I am) but what I say is pretty clear. Given my background, that is no easy task. But I do work on it.
So should you.
