Tales of the Singing Proofreader

I accepted Jeanne singing at her desk.

That was the trade-off we negotiated: I listened to Howard Stern in the morning. After lunch, Jeanne would turn on the soft jazz station. Oftentimes, that led her to “feel a vibe” and begin singing along with the music.

When I took the position as a proofreader for a software company in Manhattan, I’d been unemployed for nearly a year. I was…