Mayonnaise, the Air Force, and Writing Without Bullshit

The first person to give me a job after college was an officer in the Air Force.

I did not believe him at first, that he was an officer in the Air Force. My boring suburban middle class upbringing had not included any military officers, or military anything. From Rambo movies and other irrefutable sources I knew a military officer should be tall, have square shoulders, a solid frame, a jaw to match, with steely eyes staring 1000 yards past where he is looking at all times.

In short, a military officer should be a badass. I was sure of it. I was young. I was sure of everything then.

Brian Cyr was the opposite of Rambo. Watery expressive eyes in a fleshy, youthful face, skin so pale you could see the blue veins in his forehead, a wispy body, Brian was as threatening as mayonnaise. Not a jar of mayonnaise. Jars can be threatening. Jars can be used as weapons. Just the mayonnaise.

How could this guy be an officer in the Air Force? Not my concern. He was offering me an interesting job. He was free to tell me any story he wanted.

Brian would teach me skills. He had learned these skills in the Air Force. These skills had nothing to do with incapacitating a man with two fingers but that would have been cool. Even without showing me how to do this, after a while I believed his story that he had been an officer in the Air Force. His stories were so silly nobody could make them up. He had to be telling the truth.

Among other things, Brian taught me how to write without bullshit. His story, as clearly as I can recall almost 30 years later, was that contractors and government workers were creating documents so boring no one could read them. From equipment maintenance manuals to National Security Council briefings, and everything in between, millions of unreadable pages were being produced each year. Unreadable documents were wasting time, wasting money, fostering bad decisions, and in some cases helping planes crash.

Do you know the ratio of maintenance hours per hour of F-16 flight time? Brian knew, but I can’t remember now. Its not small. The F-16 maintenance manuals from General Dynamics were too dull. Technicians were skipping through them. Avoidable mistakes caused mishaps. People died. I can’t recall the details but the lesson was clear: bad writing killed people.

Brian had helped implement writing standards for the Air Force and anyone dealing with the Air Force. He and his team created a list of “do not use in any document at any time” words. The list was less than a page long.

Items on the list included:

• However

• In order to

• Its a fact that

• It seems to us that

• Just

• We believe that

• We think that

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

This list made the Air Force a better fighting institution. It didn’t cost any money. Brian got a promotion.

There were some other writing rules, too. Avoid the passive voice, use action words, be specific in word choice, avoid compound sentences unless they are clearly necessary.

I may have been the only electrical engineering major taking writing courses at my university. Engineering students prefer engineering over learning to communicate, although later they will spend most of their time communicating than engineering.

I almost remember my high school English teachers discussing these rules. I must have been a slow learner.

Brian taught me that clear writing is important, that using extra words does not make you sound smarter. Extra words and unnecessarily complicated writing is bullshit.

I spend a lot of time editing pitch decks, marketing materials, resumes, and other documents. Big companies, small companies, young people, and old people like me, all are generating words that have less impact than they should. These are smart people trapped by bad thinking on how to sound smart or how to be effective.

Almost no one follows Brian’s rules. They must have heard them at some point, but they never found their inner-Brian.

I have the same conversations, make the same edits, with different teams on a daily basis. I am trapped in Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day without Andy McDowell. Its much less funny without her around. Bill is not around either.

“Lets not use the passive voice, ok? Its just boring, trust me.”

“When you write ‘I believe that’ on these sentences , does that mean you do not believe what you wrote in these other sentences? yeah, I didn’t think so, lets take that out.”

"I will give you 1000 dollars if you can create a sentence where adding ‘in order to’ makes it more readable. Its never been done before, but maybe you are good at it?.”

"What is the point of this [slide|paragraph]? Does it say that? Oh, that’s your point? Do you say that anywhere? Oh, you mention it in this tiny paragraph? That is called 'burying your lead', its not helping your reader.”

“Why are you making me work so hard to understand what you are saying? Do you think your [customers | investors] have nothing else to do than struggle through all these meaningless words?”

Those who have worked with me must have heard me say a few of these things.

For years I have been searching for a resource that is concise and specific so I can avoid these conversations.

It has been tricky. My user persona for this is a PhD in computer science trying to create a product description or sales presentation and who has never studied, or likely valued, communication. Many people could use this help. You don’t have to have a PhD in some tech field. Ivy League graduates with advanced degrees in humanities can be just as bad at writing as computer scientists. Usually, though, its more work for me to convince tech people their writing requires improvement.

Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is still a classic and gets the ball rolling, but its examples are dated. This classic is often dismissed as irrelevant in the digital age, because it probably is.

Like everything he has written, Steven Pinker’s Sense of Style makes me want to be a better human being. When Pinker writes 1000 pages about a ham sandwich on a table in a perfectly white room without windows or doors, it will still likely deserve a Pulitzer Prize. You should have already read everything Pinker has written. If not, start now.

Unfortunately, Sense of Style won’t make your pitch deck better for that meeting later this week. It's too big and powerful. It's like bringing a nuclear aircraft carrier to a knife fight.

So I kept looking for my resource to get me out of the editing business.

I found my first “Amazon book store” on M Street in Washington DC only a few months ago. I stood outside dumbfounded for about 20 minutes. An Amazon book store? Really? How absurd!

(It is true, they exist.)

Once inside I realized it was the future of retail. You must visit one.

At this Amazon book store I found Josh Bernoff’s Writing Without Bullshit. Josh wrote the perfect book for getting me out of my editing work, and more importantly, for helping you write your next email. Or pitch deck. Or blog post. Or memo.

Face it. We all write stuff all the time. You should invest a few hours of your time in a fun read on how to write better.

Writing Without Bullshit is filled with instantly applicable writing advice for the 21st Century. It is perfectly organized. Josh’ writing style will win you over and wean you of bad habits instantly. You will quickly learn Jedi-like writing techniques that will bend the minds of your readers, convince your readers that there are no droids here.

I promise. I have read and re-read thousands of pages on writing over the years. I don’t make book recommendations often. So take my advice. You need to read this book.

There are valuable lessons to learn throughout the entire book, but its worth your time if you only read Part Two. Part One is justification. Part Two is where Josh will be your inner Brian. That’s where the meat is.

If you are really in a rush, only read the chapter titles of Part Two.

You don’t need to visit an Amazon book store. Buy it on Kindle.

I don’t recall saying goodbye to Brian when I left that job. I don’t recall thanking him for anything he taught me. Most importantly, I don’t recall thanking him for being my first mentor at a time when I did not know what that meant. I was young and did not understand the value of relationships, even ones that were ending.

Brian, if you are out there, thank you. I remember you fondly.