Please respect your editor—especially your editor with a disability.

Many people don’t picture editors as having disabilities. After all, “an editor is supposed to know about writing better than I do.”

But many disabilities are invisible, and an editor can have a disability which is either invisible or more visible.

An editor can be blind. I personally have never known a blind editor, but I know a legally blind attorney. This person’s profession requires a lot of reading and writing. She has done a fabulous job as an attorney using accommodations, such as someone reading her documents out loud and a computer program which enlarges all of the font on her screen. I can certainly picture such accommodations helping an editor who is visually impaired.

An editor can struggle with a disease that requires many medical visits, such as cancer that requires chemotherapy or a kidney problem that requires dialysis. This editor does their very best to meet your deadline, but they may possibly have to renegotiate if their treatments cause them to become sick or weak.

An editor may also get pregnant (not a disability, but a condition nonetheless) and have to go on maternity leave, even if she is self-employed; she will need time to get adjusted to a new member of her family. Even after she returns to work, don’t be surprised if you hear squalling in the background during the next Zoom call with her.

An editor may have a learning disability. Please don’t write them off. A better term for such a condition is “learning difference.” This editor can learn just as well as you can. They just have to do it in a different way—one which was probably not available to them in school. They can edit just as well as other editors, but they need to do it in a different way. When they were a child, they most likely dealt with ridicule from their teachers and peers while their parents swam through the ordeal of getting them a 504 plan. Not fun for anyone.

Please be kind to your editor.

There is a lot of talk about dress codes in the office. The dress code in many offices is often referred to as “business casual.”

My father worked for the federal government from the 1960s to the early 1990s, when office dress codes were more formal. I remember being a child and watching him leave for work every day in a suit and tie. I don’t know what the women in his office wore, but I imagine they wore dresses and skirts and maybe suits. And fancy shoes that hurt their feet.

Near the end of my father’s tenure in the government, the dress code in his office relaxed. They even began to have “casual Friday.” On these days, my father would wear a green Champion sweatshirt—with a dress shirt underneath and dress pants.

I personally cannot say much about the dress codes in a typical office, because I never worked in one. I worked in academic research labs. These labs have dress codes as well, but they are completely different from those in an office.

For example, jeans are permitted in a lab and are often encouraged. Even though a technician wears a white lab coat (which is often a mandatory part of the dress code), there is still the possibility of something getting splashed on their legs. It is also possible that the technician may have to get down on their knees to operate or fix a piece of equipment. For that, they would not want to be wearing dress slacks or a nice skirt. T-shirts and sweatshirts are passable in an academic lab as well, as long as they do not display anything objectionable or political.

There are, of course, items of clothing that should not be worn in a lab. Open-toed shoes of any kind are a no-no, for obvious reasons. (I have seen several lab workers try to get away with this, with the result being that their entire lab had to go undergo special safety training.) Neither shorts nor miniskirts are a good idea, either.

As for industrial labs, I cannot say anything about their dress codes, because I have never worked in one.

Is there anything you like or dislike about the dress code where you work?

Let’s talk about beauty magazines for a minute.

I read them when I was a young teenage girl. Specifically, I read Seventeen. (I have heard it said that 14-year-old girls read Seventeen, while 17-year-old girls read Cosmopolitan.) And I learned a lot from reading it.

I learned that you need to use a base coat when you paint your nails. (“Don’t just slick color on bare nails.” Perish the thought.)

I learned that when you get up in the morning, you should do some exercises to “get the juices flowing.” (Sorry. Not before breakfast.)

I learned how difficult it is to start a modeling career.

And I learned what sexual dreams can really mean.

In retrospect, I never liked how reading beauty magazines made me feel when I was a young teen. I felt “less than” because I did not follow the “proper” procedure for doing my nails. I felt inadequate because I had terrible acne that nothing, it seemed, would help. I felt downright ugly because I could not do anything with my hair.

Although I was never unfortunate enough to develop an eating disorder, I could see how such magazines can contribute to that or trigger it. The models on the covers, in the pictures inside, and in the advertisements were so slim, thin, and beautiful, and their bodies were hair-free—waxed to perfection. (The issue of body hair on women is a whole other one that I will not get into right now.)

Suffice it to say that I felt unattractive while reading beauty magazines. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why I read them for several years. Reading them was a mistake; I should have spent the time reading juicy science fiction novels.

If you are the mother of a teen daughter who is drawn to beauty magazines, please sit down with her at some point and tell her she is beautiful, and nothing will change that. Tell her she is just as beautiful to you as the models in her magazines. Then love her like the beautiful person she is.