EYEHEARTZOMBIES

I feel like I’m wasting time writing this, but I’m not, ’cause I’m waiting on Elaine to scan some pictures. Yes, waiting on her to scan them. I have to wait because we’re still at work and there’s only one scanner; the one attached to her computer. She hasn’t scanned them yet ’cause she’s working on an ad, and I don’t really mind. It gives me a bit to breathe after this hectic day. This day and yesterday. What? You want to know about it? OK, here goes.

First off, I haven’t written on NaNoWriMo since Saturday or Sunday. I don’t remember which, but I think it was Sunday. Yeah, it was. I just checked. Anyway, I haven’t written anything since then, so, needless to say, I’m behind. Monday, yesterday, was the halfway point, 25,000 words, and I was/am at just under 20,000. I’m not really worried about that, though. This week is going to be the killer, I knew it all along. Why? This week is deadline. And not only that….

A co-worker that we really liked, we’ll call her BKO, left just after this past month’s issue was sent to the printer. She was the main editor here at the paper and did a lot more. She took care of the ad contracts, did the page mockups/layouts, and wrote a good chunk of all of the stories. Well, she left and everything went all right for a few days/a week. Then the deadline appeared and everyone didn’t freak out. “What?” you say. “Are they insane?” The answer, avid reader, is YES.

In any case, a new editor was hired this past week. She came in for the first time on the 8th or so. She seemed like a nice-enough woman, and I’m sure she is. She’s just not right for this job; at least, not right for right now. We do 6 monthly papers, as I’ve said before, and we have a pretty good system for ensuring that everything makes it in. The sales staff sells the ads, brings the contracts to whoever manages them. If they need to be designed, we do that, but that’s beside the point. The ad manager/editor pastes up a little yellow square, representing the ad, to a page mock-up that’s taped to the wall. I know, old school, but it works. Then, when an article is written, it’s marked on the page, too. Images are boxed onto the page and when it’s finally full, it’s taken down, photocopied, and given to me. This whole time, BKO/whoever has been making the page in QuarkXPress, too. When I get the photocopy, I go grab the Quark document, tweak the kerning/tracking, page layout, add in the ads and images (after adjusting them for size/lightness) and then print the page for edits. A great process, as I said before.

Well, the new one (we should call her MJ) doesn’t seem to like doing it that way. She mocks it up on the wall just fine. It’s the Quark document that she has problems with. She wants to put the images in. She wants to print it out for proofs. She wants to do all the steps that she’s not supposed to do. I’ve explained her job to her a few times. I’ve told her “no, that’s my responsibility.” It doesn’t work. It’s getting really annoying.

Today, for instance, she spent the whole morning (well, morning to me. She stopped around 3 o’clock) trying to print ONE PAGE. Actually, ONE HALF OF A PAGE. Her computer just wouldn’t print it. It didn’t need to print it, as that’s my job, but that wasn’t important to her, I guess. Finally bossman and I both explained to her that I would print it from my computer like always and she moved on to something else.

I know, it’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Some “professional” spending all day trying to print half of a page that they didn’t need to print anyway? Yeah, I can see the humor in it myself. Except for this next line:

DEADLINE IS THIS FRIDAY BY NOON

That’s right, boys and girls, this Friday. Which means that the pages have to be done, all ads and images and stories, by Thursday morning so edits can be done. And they’ll be so sloppy edits at that. ‘Cause, as mentioned before, it takes me six hours to PDF the pages, stuff them, and send them to the printer. And MJ has been able to hand me a whopping three pages so far…three. Out of 50+.