I confess that I had to re-read this 'apology' a few times before I realised it was meant to be serious! Calling somebody a production monkey (I've even been called a production wallah) is a genial bit of banter, comparable to us creatives complaining about number-crunchers. Why on earth should we let racists hijack a perfectly good insult? (I think of it as the infinite number of monkeys bashing keyboards to produce Shakespearean genius!) The argument that a racist might use the word 'monkey' in some deranged diatribe could not justify removing the word from civilised use. And expecting non-racists to affix some disclaimer to their use of a word that a racist might distort is really letting the tail wag the dog! Let's not accommodate racists by giving them the right to re-program our language! I suggest the presumption of non-racism should prevail, with total derision reserved for genuine racism!

I'm so ugly that calling me a monkey has made my week.

i confess that the thought that this term could be considered racist *never* occurred to me -- i use it all the time with a very positive intent. i mean, we're all descended from apes, aren't we? i always considered it to be akin to being a geek -- someone who puzzles things out, takes things apart and fixes them again to see how they work, that sort of thing. in short, a THINKER. being a code monkey, design monkey, or whatever -- to me, that indicates creativity and thinking in action.

The word "monkey" is not racist and anyone who says it is, is an idiot.

Calling a black person a monkey is racist. But saying that the word monkey (as in production) monkey is racist is idiotic.

What if the writer would have called them production "rats" (as in rats in a maze or the rat race)? Would that have been racist.

Someone is being politically correct to the point of complete stupidity.

signed,

a progressive liberal

Liked the article overall. Agree on importance of efficiency. Just disappointed in apology over use of 'monkey'. Am just tired in general of political correctness and of people seeing racism where there isn't any, which blurs our collective vision of where the plague of racism still does exist.

"Monkey" as a racist term. Hah! That's ludicrous! I hate seeing people apologise for statements where no apology should be necessary. The politically correct motivations of these people carve great pointless wedges into the grammar and vocabulary we all use on a daily basis. Forcing writers to constantly look behind them to see who they might have offended stifles the very creativity we appreciate.

I hope it doesn't stifle yours. Thanks for your site. Keep up the brilliant work.

there's too much "sensitivity" in the air and not enough common sense. Creatives are trained to examine and consider context, who ever wrote you must have either been an HR puke or a "suit"!

It really irks me that people with nothing better to do dedicate their lives to getting offended by everything. When I was a kid if someone called us a name we responded by saying something like "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." Or how about the old standby, "I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces offa me and sticks to you"? We certainly didn't let it get to us. It's really stupid to get so bent out of shape about such things. It only makes your life miserable. Wake up people. Are you that insecure that simple words can destroy your life? Get over it. Reading offense into innocent comments is just lame.

What idiot would downgrade the much-needed work done by highly skilled production people?

Being a digital photographer processing vast quantizes of files regularly makes production efficiency paramount.

I have different backgrounds for every folder from specific hard drives so that I instantly know where an open folder belongs. I have folder icons for different stages of the process; RAW, converted Tiff yet to be worked on, files in progress, files completed, files completed and delivered (I hang on to them for awhile just in case. All files are archived on CD/DVD, as are the RAW files). Each client also have it's own custom folder icon on top of the custom folder icons just mentioned. As in client having the logo on top of each stage's icons mentioned above. There are two sets of icon families for clients and personal workflow stages. I have also designated different hard drives for different stages of the workflow and, of course, regular backups.

I have being accused of being anal about this, but most people that see the workflow in use, are impressed by the efficiency and my ability to know where in the workflow any given file is at any given time.

I included the 'production monkey' reference as it was something said to me years ago when I was a production editor. It couldn't be more relevant to this piece really, could it?
I've never forgotten it, not because I was offended but because I knew at that moment that my bid to help us become a more efficient (but no less creative) team would be scuppered by an intransigent designer.

I agree design itself should be freeflowing and unfettered, but not to the detriment of profitability and professionalism.

Now long before the entire English language is not usable because someone feels offended by whatever is said. Racism is not carried by a word. It is in only the reader's head.

Even a monkey would agree with that!

The words "word" (singular), "creative" and "thought" (as well as "thinking") are also racist (I trembled as I typed them). "Idiocy" and "stupidity-at-the-very least" are what comes to mind as a better choice to describe comments on the word "monkey" (I had to use it, I'm sorry). Are these racists too ? I profusely apologize if they are. A.C.