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up vote 2 down vote favorite

Is this correct?

I don't miss my deadlines, even when I worked for a high pressure educational software company, which required quick, effective reasoning without compromising the quality of the end result.

It seems equivalent to this, which sounds awful:

Even when I worked for a high pressure educational software company, which required quick, effective reasoning without compromising the quality of the end result, I don't miss my deadlines.

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I'm afraid we don't do proofreading, as per the faq. – Matt Эллен Jul 20 '12 at 8:04

closed as off topic by FumbleFingers, Matt Эллен, MετάEd, Mahnax, JLG Sep 28 '12 at 4:34

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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

You're right; the tense switch is incorrect grammar. I'd say to split the first part (which describes your habit) from the second (which describes a past event):

I don't miss my deadlines. Even when I worked for a high pressure educational software company, which required quick, effective reasoning without compromising the quality of the end result, I was consistently on time.

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1  
I think the mixed tenses are unquestionably "incorrect". Simplify it to "I am industrious even when I was on holiday" (the comma can't possibly be cited as justifying the tense switch) and it's patently nonsense. – FumbleFingers Jul 19 '12 at 20:37
+1 @FumbleFingers You are correct; I have edited. – Daniel δ Jul 19 '12 at 20:41
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Downvote reversed. Personally I think OP's example is a real garden path sentence, in that (if you assume as I did on first reading that the comma was probably supposed to be a semicolon), you have to keep reading for ages before discovering that you've come to a full stop before reaching something like the final clause correctly added in your rephrased version. – FumbleFingers Jul 19 '12 at 20:53

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