A venting thread (long, long, long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Or just listen to me vent, that’ll do just fine :slight_smile: This whole week has just been one stupid petty annoyance after another, as follows:

Tuesday I get back to work after the holiday. Someone decides to expand a section of the newspaper I work on, and in the course of this they stick me with an unwanted co-author on my only bylined piece in the paper. And I will be listed after him, since we go strictly alphabetically. He’s worked for the paper for three weeks.

Wednesday morning at 8am I have two root canals on my front teeth. I get to go back to work with my upper lip all swollen because the dentist forgot that rubber gloves make my lips swell up, so I look and feel like I’ve been punched in the mouth. But I am looking forward to heading home, because my DSL is supposed to be hooked up today. I get home, duly install an Ethernet card and hook up the modem, and I can’t log on. Ages of hold time and a battle with Earthlink “tech support” later, we discover that my idiot local phone company hasn’t turned on the DSL.

On Thursday (with my left hand on ice because a bus driver closed the door on my hand on the way to work), I’m supposed to start receiving work from a new writer for a new section of the paper. He, working from out of state, turns in stuff he wrote for his website. In Dreamweaver format, because that’s where he does all his word processing. So I have the choice of retyping the whole thing or spending half an hour taking out all the damn codes and pictures. He also turns in only 1,200 words for two pages,and I need at least 2,000. Repeated calls to recalcitrant author, who repeatedly promises to call me back and doesn’t.

Friday I get to work and find my computer is missing while they install more software, which was supposed to have been done Thursday night. So I spend the first half of the day working on a computer in another department and calling recalcitrant author from there. I get back to my own desk at last, and r.a. asks me to fax over what they’ve laid out so far. I do, and he doesn’t like the design, saying it’s supposed to look more like his website. “That’s not my department,” I tell him, and also tell him we must have more content. He says, “Well, I have another column all ready to go. Just take it off my site.” I gently explain to him that we are not going to start going backwards, and that he has to turn in things that are related to what we already have. He sulkily agrees – and I’ll have at least four pieces of his to edit on Monday, when I’m already swamped with deadline-sensitive stuff.

Today nothing much, except my DSL still isn’t hooked up and no one will make any prediction as to when it will be. Also, because my regular mail carrier is on vacation, I got all the wrong mail in my box.

Catrandom, who is now afraid to leave the house.

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hugs

Just because you needed one…

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Whatever you do, don’t complain to the letter carrier. As a postal employess I know how touchy we can be. And you don’t want to know how many ways we can screw up your mail.
Just put all the wrong mail back in the box and put the flag up and pretend it didn’t happen…(snickering quietly behind her hand)

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Your too far from the CO for DSL. Sorry. Its a best effort service. snicker

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Having had a rough week also, though for different reasons, I sympathize with you CatRandom. Hope next week goes much better for you.

{{{{{{{CatRandom}}}}}}}

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And there was a time I wanted to get into journalism?

Cat, you have all of my sympathy. Hope next week goes better, but I fear this will be the story of your career from now on.

But you still have us, always happy to lend a sympathetic ear even if we can’t come up with anything cheering to say.

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Awwww … thanks, folks. Asmodeus, I am most grateful for your jumping right in there. (Though your username sort of scares me… :wink: ) Hugs are definitely needed right now – and my cat isn’t really the huggy type.

dragonlady … ummm … I already complained to the post office about it because this happens every single time the regular carrier goes on vacation. So I guess I’m never gonna get any mail again, right? :frowning:

B_Line, My local phone company was supposed to have checked all that before I signed up, but I have this awful feeling you may be right. We shall see.

And, dear purple, thanks so much. I know you’ve been through some real troubles this week, so thanks for listening to my whining.

And dropzone; yes, this is how the journalism thing goes sometimes. I always wanted to be a copy editor. but sometimes I do wonder why it seemed like such a good idea. If it weren’t for the writers, this job would be a breeze :slight_smile:

All sympathetic ears and hugs are very, very much appreciated.

Catrandom, feeling better

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Look at it this way, Catrandom, it could be worse…

You could still be having to deal with late copy from me on top of everything else.

I miss hearing your sweet voice as you chewed me out for missing my early deadline for the thousandth time. I know you’ll have better luck with Brayne (the SDMB name of the guy who’s sending the success stories now), because he doesn’t do a damn thing all day and has lots of time to devote to you.

Everyone, have I ever mentioned that Catrandom has the saintly patience of an elementary school teacher, a dog groomer’s ability to make a mutt look fantastic (figuratively speaking), and a dominatrix’s skill at cracking the whip (those being the skills needed by a good copy editor)? She deserved better than me, and I deserved to have my pants set on fire.

{{{{{{{{{{{catrandom}}}}}}}}}}}}}

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{{{Catrandom}}} Hang in there!!!

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Awwwww Cat, you sure did have a sucky week, didn’t you? I wish there were something I could say to make it better.

{{{{{Hugs}}}}}

You know eventually it just has to improve!

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Cat, sometimes you gotta take what life gives you…'cuz life is like a mop! (UHF quote).

Seriously though, I hope you never have to go through an ordeal like that. I dread days when I have to wake up early (Ahem Trash days…), and I thought those were bad. I will now look at minor things like that much differently.

But look at it this way: You’re getting hugs from celebrities, including but not limited to the IMHO prom queen (There is no competition to Shayna)

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Here I get back after my 15-hour deadline day (and not having been able to get online all day yesterday due to my ongoing capital-W War with Earthlink’s alleged “tech support”) and find all your nice messages in my little ol’ thread.

Chef Troy, you weren’t really that bad :smiley: and thanks for the nice words and hugs – it’s very much appreciated right now, since my workload has approximately tripled in the last month. Brayne, you say…? :wink:

Thanks for the hugs, Geobabe – it means a lot, it really does. And Shayna, you’re such a sweetie! The best!

Monster, thanks very much. I think you can only have a week as sucky as this past one once in a long while. You guys are great!

Catrandom, tired, but feeling better