So, Nation subs have to be restrained, eh?

Mike Eldon, one of Kenya’s leading management consultants, just had a collection of his writings published under the title 'Kenyans, Yes we can!'.
A good read, I must add but something under acknowledgements caught my eye.
"For quite some time now Nick has been pursuing his MBA, and so Ochieng Rapura and John Kamau have been my bosses at Nation Centre. They have been good to me too, including doing their best to hold back their sub editors from 'editing' (note the quote marks) my pieces."

A wee correction: Mr Eldon, it is not Rapura but Rapuro (a sub would have noticed that, haaaaaaa ha!).

Actually, sir, subs are your friends. Don't listen to your high ranking friends in media houses when they say that subs mess up your nice piece of writing. They lie; subs don't mess up any copy unless it really needs to be messed up. (Oh, and I get this feeling those friends of yours spend zillions of minutes in ‘management, planning and strategy’ meetings and get paid hundreds of thousands for that!).
Subs work so hard; they clean your copy of such silly things like typos, untruths, outrageous similes, insults, stupid thoughts, incoherent thoughts etc.
One of these days sir, take some time off your busy schedule and sub for just one day. Your life will never be the same. For that one day you will be annoyed, disgusted, outraged, enraged etc at what crap subs have to deal with day in day out and still get a paper out with decent, engaging stories and remain sane.
However, if you find your piece butchered, chances are:
1. It didn't make sense;
2. You kept going on and on about the same thing;
3. It was too long for the space allocated;
4. It was a load of crap despite how highsounding it was;
5. It deserved to be butchered.
(6. Maybe the sub thought you were full of yourself and decided to 'edit' you to size.)

But: I like your book and wish other columnists and talking heads would put their thoughts to paper too.
I will definitely enjoy reading your book.

I am just a sub who has to be held back from editing some great piece every now and then