What happens when your copy gets "elevated"

How to manage the arduous approval process

Beware the phantom elevator. It’s the death ship to nowhere.

Some folks have added a slight variation on the need for heightened awareness. As is the case in a shopping mall, many people prefer to take the escalator, as in “This project can’t wait any longer. Let’s escalate it.”

The escalator may provide a more leisurely ride to the floors above, but at least there’s no waiting.

Whether you take the escalator, the elevator, or simply trudge up the stairs, one thing is certain: The recipients of all this uploading are the problem, not the solution.

The reason? The elevator gets stuck somewhere in the middle. The escalator doesn’t escalate you all the way to the top. It drops off your copy on the middle floors, where middling managers and vice presidents get to spend quality time wrestling with your prose. Generally speaking, the more time they spend, the lesser the quality of their contributions.

Here’s what happens when a piece of copy gets elevated, escalated or otherwise levitated.