Photo by Jesse Orrico on Unsplash

Experience can be tricky to define and gauge. As a freelancer, what standard do you compare yourself to? When are you no longer a “newbie”? Some professional societies, such as the UK’s Society of Indexers or Editors Canada, offer certification, which can be helpful. Many others do not offer these external standards by which we can gauge ourselves. Is it a matter of, “I know it when I see it”?

I returned home a couple of days ago from the Indexing Society of Canada’s annual conference, held this year in Winnipeg. It was the fifth indexing conference I have attended. Unexpectedly, I came away feeling like I was truly an experienced indexer. I do not say this to brag or to say that I have finally arrived, whatever that means. There has been a shift, though—a subtle, unlooked for, shift, perhaps—in how I view myself, and perhaps in how I perceive how my colleagues view me. 

I have been trying to think about what happened at the conference that might have contributed to this shift. I did announce our new mentorship program, which I helped to write the proposal for and for which I am now one of the two coordinators tasked with turning the proposal into a functioning program. I know that indexing experience is not strictly necessary to put together a mentorship program, but I am still feeling the weight of this responsibility. I did feel like I recognized more colleagues than I have in the past, and in turn was recognized by them. I have been around long enough that colleagues are starting to turn into friends. I did talk to a number of newer indexers, compared to whom I am, I realize, more experienced, while there are others who have been indexing far longer. I suppose you could say that in my sixth year as a freelancer I am somewhere in the middle of my career. The beginning is now past.

I often think about the two seasons I planted trees in northern British Columbia, when I think about the acquisition and progression of experience. I turned nineteen and twenty those two summers. Tree planting is seasonal work in Canada, to replace the trees cut down by logging. First year planters are called rookies, and you remain a rookie until the last day of the season. If you come back for a second year, you are a vet. The demarcation is clear.

Experience is what differentiates rookies from vets. The first season is dedicated to learning proper technique, how to read the ground, and how to add speed, once technique is ingrained. I only hit the two thousand tree mark three, maybe four days that first summer. For me, much of that first season was also the mental struggle to stay engaged in a repetitious, physically demanding task and environment. Especially in the third month, I am pretty sure I was burning out. One afternoon I literally threw my shovel away and cried, alone in the middle of the clearcut. I felt numb and exhausted. All I wanted to do was to sit and be somewhere else. But, I was in the middle of the wilderness with a bag of seedlings strapped to my waist. At the very least I needed to walk back to the truck, which I think was at least a ten minute walk. So after sitting for a bit I found my shovel and dragged myself back to work.

In contrast, my second season got off to a flying start. I hit two thousand trees within the first few days and maintained that pace for the rest of the summer. I would often plant upwards to 2,200 trees a day, occasionally more, with my personal best being about 2,650, on trenched ground, with a sore knee. I was refreshed from nine months away, and all of that experience from my first year—all that I was trying to achieve my first year—suddenly became possible. I was clearly no longer a rookie. That said, there were a few vets on our crew who had been planting for five or more years. They would routinely plant three thousand trees a day, sometimes going up to four or five thousand if the ground was creamy. Experience exists on a continuum. 

Bringing this back to indexing, I think there are a few markers for experience. One is simply putting in the work, measured both in time and in indexes completed. Indexing, like tree planting, is inherently hands-on. While knowledge about technique can inform practice, that knowledge will never replace practice. The best way to gain experience is to just do the work. 

A second aspect is self-reflection. I think it is possible for someone to index poorly for a long time, because they have never thought about how they index or how they can improve. I think when someone is described as an experienced indexer, quality is often implied, which requires attention to craft. The other side of this is that even experienced indexers can get better. There is always room to learn. 

I think that mindset is a third aspect. I see this in myself, in that somewhere along the way I have come to recognize that I have completed a significant body of work, that my work processes and skills have changed over time (hopefully for the better), and that I am better able to deal with challenges as they arise. I also have a changing sense of myself in relation to my colleagues, whether those are colleagues ahead of me, with me, or behind me on this continuum of experience. I am coming to see that I am experienced, while also seeing that there is still more that I can learn. 

Maybe I am premature to consider myself experienced. Maybe I will look back on this post ten years from now and think, “What is that idiot talking about?” And maybe I will think the same again twenty years from now. I don’t know. Either way, the work continues. I trust that you and I, if we keep chipping away at our craft, will find experience, one way or another. And there is always another indexing conference next year to look forward to.

I wasn’t able to find a stock photo of tree planting, but check this article out on Vice for some stunning photos. There is nothing quite like pounding trees. It is as much a lifestyle as it is a job.