How to Guard Your Reputation and Make SURE You Never Publish a Hot Steem-y Pile of Poop

I stood there, frozen in place, watching in horror as he squatted down and pooped right in front of that guy's hotel room

I love dogs. Like, REALLY love my dogs. Right now, I've got four and a half of them (one's only part-time, so...). They are truly some of the nicest people I've ever met! :) And ONE has a particularly inglorious moment that serves as valuable advice for anyone posting on Steemit.

My favorite dog of all time was Woody. He was a pointer and spaniel mix (plus probably a bunch of other stuff) and I got him back in 2002 from a lady who ran a rescue in South Carolina.

He was kind of a weird dude, truth be told. He was terrified of thunder - and houseflies. I can't even tell you how many times I found him cowering in my closet because there was a fly dive-bombing him.

A little blurry... for some reason he didn't want to stand still. Can't imagine why.

There was nothing he liked more than peanut butter. Well, unless it was bacon slathered with peanut butter. (I dug up an OLD video of him going to town on some PB - it's a video I made for some writing students, but you'll get the idea.)

The kids and I used to trick him sometimes. We'd yell, "Woody! Squirrel!!!" and he'd barrel through the house, out through the doggie door, and into the back yard... woofing all the way. (I know, mean - but it was so funny!)

So many stories! One of these days I'm going to write a little book about him, because there are so many crazy stories about that lovable knucklehead. But this one might be my favorite (even though it's a little bit horrifying.)

Woody was an excellent lifeguard at the lake.

The kids were little. We were living in Jacksonville the year the Superbowl came there. It was several months before I started writing, and we were... broke.

So we rented out our house. It was a group of NE Patriots fans and moved the four of us, Woody, and our two cats into a cheap hotel in Orlando for the week. NOT a good hotel. Really, not.

It rained and rained and rained that week. We didn't have money to do much of anything. The hotel didn't have a pool, and wasn't in the best area.

So, we got creative. The kids and I would take Woody for "hotel walks" - up and down each of the four floors in the hotel. He didn't care, he was so excited to do just about anything.

In fact, he got so excited that...

He pooped. In the hallway. Right in front of this guy's door.

It kind of happened in slow motion. It was unstoppable. I hadn't thought to bring a bag or anything (he'd already gone once outside!). The kids and I kind of stood there in shock, eyes bulging out. Halfway cracking up, halfway trying to avoid being detected.

So, we did what you might expect. We RAN.... right into my ex, who was coming down the hallway.

The kids blurted out what had happened. I explained that I was going back to our room to find something to pick it up with. Woody just stood there looking pleased with himself.

What happened next is burned into my memory forever.

He walked up to the offending feces and picked it up... with his bare hands. (WHY!??!??) On his way through the door into the stairwell, he said he just hoped he didn't run into anyone and have to explain why he was walking through the hotel with two hands full of poop.

I lost it. The kids nearly died laughing. Woody just wagged his tail.

It could happen to you - sort of. Unfortunately, unless you've got a surefire way to check your work (whether you're writing for Steemit, creating content for clients, or proxy publishing to help a minnow), before you publish...

YOU could be the one standing there with poop in your hands, mortified.

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Don't let that happen! Make sure you've got a process for reviewing content that protects you from that horrible humiliation.

Here's what I do with EVERY SINGLE piece of content my team and I create for my clients:

• Run it through Copyscape. It's 5 cents a search, and there was never a nickel better spent. Even if I know for a fact that I wrote the piece from scratch, I still run it through Copyscape. Why? Because my client might - and if for any reason somehow the content is similar enough to something someone published somewhere, I want to know that and fix it first.
• Run it through Grammarly. My use of commas is particularly 'creative' - but there are other issues I just don't see until I've run my work through Grammarly Premium. Better word choice, getting rid of passive phrasing, typos (!) - it's all easy to fix after Grammarly points it out.
• Eyeball it again. Or hire someone to do it for you to make sure we've met the specs, that it makes sense, that the paragraphs aren't too long, and that it progresses logically.

Yes, it takes longer to review than I'd like. But with a solid review process in place, I avoid delivering sub-par work to my clients... which keeps them my clients, and makes sure I'm never left standing there holding a hot, steaming mess.

The same holds true on Steemit. Before you hit publish - either on your own work, or if you're promoting another user - why not at least run it through Copyscape to make sure you're not accidentally plagiarizing?

This message is Woody-Approved. (I sure miss that boy.)

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All images my own. GIFs from Giphy.com

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