If I have to read ONE MORE GODDAM LAYOUT . . .

The BBQ Pit
21

I am certainly glad to know, mouthbreather, that every second of your working life is such a delight and joy that we will be spared, in perpetuity, the awful experience of having to read your negative comments about how, on occasion, it can become a wee bit overwhelming

OR

that you are such an attention-deficit-disordered quitter that the first time you’re asked to clean the grease trap at MickeyD’s you slouch off in high dudgeon to look for another job and, unfortunately, find one in time to prevent you from actually starving to death.

I leave it to the Teeming Thousands to decide which alternative is the more plausible.

“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means

22

Oww, Eve, just think of the wonderful little smile on the face and warm fuzziness in the heart the magazines subscribers will have when they see their brand new, plastic-wrapped issue has arrived! They’ll do a little happy-jig in their heads and scuttle inside to their den.

Slowly will they peal back the wrapper to reveal beautifully written articles, fascinating interviews and crisp photography.

They’ll sit by the fireplace and laugh and cry and experience joy and long-forgotten emotions.

When they finally finish their intimate session with the magazine, they will close the cover and hold it to their body for a few moments while they dream of far-away places with blue skies and enchanted emerald forests.

And it will all by due to you, Eve.

You will be everything to them.

The work you do now is little to give in return for such sublime rewards!

Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.

23

akatsukami,

Yes. I clean grease traps in fast food. I am a quitter. I am employed 4 days out of the month, barely avoiding starvation between each one.

:yawn:

Now, getting to the part of your post that may actually hold some water,

If you read the OP, it doesn’t sound to me like she’s saying it can occasionally be overwhelming. Sounded to me like the proofreading is a regular part of the cycle for releasing a new issue of her magazine, and she hates every second of it proofreading). If I misinterpreted the OP, then I am at fault here. If not, then I stand by my previous posts.

24

Damn typos. Let’s try that last paragraph again.

If you read the OP, it doesn’t sound to me like she’s saying it can occasionally be overwhelming. Sounded to me like the proofreading is a regular part of the cycle for releasing a new issue of her magazine, and she hates every second of it (the proofreading). If I misinterpreted the OP, then I am at fault here. If not, then I stand by my previous posts.

25

Sake, you’re an absolute doll! But obviously you have never read “More.”

Mouth, OK, lemme explain more at length—the mag world is much like what someone said about war: two weeks of boredom followed by a week of hell. I am in hell-week:issue-closing time. Constant, frantic, hysteria, editors like hyenas on crack leaning over me yelling “GET ALL THOSE ARTICLES DONE NOW—RIGHT NOW—AND DON’T MAKE ANY MISTAKES! TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THEM . . . AREN’T THEY DONE YET?”

Yes, I’d like to get out—you have a job offer for me?

Now, excuse me, I gotta re-do the Alaska article for the 1023th time . . .

26

Ok then, Eve, thanks for the explanation.

And, going against all my intrinsic Pit-iquette…

I’m sorry if I came of like a boorish ass.

27

I used to work in as a hospital technician, sometimes I got to crawl under laundry machines to repair them ,want to know where all the shitty,pissy,huey,bloody bedclothes go?Mostly into those machines,except for items that fall under them and stay there for weeks ,lurking ,breathing ,growing waiting for me to drag 'em out,so that I can crawl under.
Now I got sick(literally) and worked down a coal mine instead cold ,wet ,dirty ,noisy and dangerous if you don’t watch out.
Got made redundant I didn’t object one bit now I work in a jail ,now that IS fun.
Proof reading may be boring or even stressful and my career choices may be ‘interesting’ but pleeeze Eve we don’t all get choices we’d like.
You got my sympathy o.k?(no I DO mean it)

Breather boy-what you need is a good divorce to sort you out.Listen to some blues man.

28

um…ok, thanks for the advice, cas boy.

: :pats him gently on the head::

now run along.

29

stupid smilies.

um…ok, thanks for the advice, cas boy.

::Pats him gently on the head::

now run along.

30

Eve, I wish you (or someone as conscientious as you) worked for all the publications I read. I have been an editor and I know that something goes out in every publication, but honestly! I bought a book the other day with the following quote on the COVER: “Hillarious and touching…” This is a mass-market paperback. Please.

But, re the OP, chin up…there really are a lot of us that appreciate the brutal, unrewarding, monotonous and repetitive (did I mention monotonous?) work you do. Okay, I appreciate it. Because any mag that doesn’t have a million typos makes me very happy indeed. So here’s what your boss won’t tell you: THANKS!

31

Eve,

I can’t help but laugh a little. You always seem so relaxed and in control, it’s kind of funny to see you frazzled. That and I’ve been having a rough time at work for the past two weeks and it feels good to know that I’m not the only one.

It’ll get better soon. Hang in there.

Oh, by the way. I’m holding another training class on DSL next week - would you mind proofreading my handouts? :wink:

32

Eve: all the susequent cacophany aside, I sympathize entirely. My husband was, until recently, the editor of Living Blues magazine. Substitute “movie afficianado” with “blues…”. And, Mississippi wages bein’ what they are, that meant editing (sometimes rewriting entirely), copy editing, layout, as well as driving the thing up to Memphis for preproduction and then to the final press. I know from the depths of my heart how all-consuming it is, and understand the angst of your OP. It was a well-deserved rant!

As to those who take issue with that venting, politely placed by Eve in the appropriate forum, hopefully you’ve now learned a bit as to what necessitates a personal attack.

And ya gotta love Wally for ripping off the IV’s and coming to the aid of his buds. Jane, is there a BBQ default function on yer machine?

33

Forgot to add : The fact that you’re an elegant writer has probably added to a disproportionate serving on your plate. Which would add to the desire to hoist the whole damn table over once in awhile. I hear ya!

34

Eve … my fingers and brain are melting in sympathy.

I did the same thing for an online rag for two years with the glorious job title of Assistant Editor. Ptooey.

You know, the job is great two months out of a cycle. Then Deadline hits.

So and So" didn’t turn in their article, but promises it by this date. “This Guy” turned in an article so many words short, and you need filler space. “Me Me Me” has a 1500 word BIO, fer cryin out, that you have to shave to three sentences and now they’r threatening to pull the whole piece. “Ooops, I Goofed” (again) suddenly found the right reference and half the piece needs to be changed, just insert this here … after you spend 70 hours a week editing these things in the first place.

A word processor hiccups here, and suddenly every 30th word is missing a letter. Spellchecks wig out, and suddenly the entire content of an article (or several) is changed. A typo that “looks” right isn’t, and makes someone say something totally different. You can’t let these slide.

When the issue came out, I couldn’t even read it. My god, I’d read the things so many times that I just didn’t care anymore. Every time I’d look at it, my brain would be looking for errors and not enjoying content.

I loved my job. But I swear to god I got homicidal around deadline time. I finally had to quit, because my health (I’m the queen of RSI) just couldn’t handle it.

Breathe, grab a squishy thing, picture the equipment/author/typesetter/whathaveyou in the squishy, and pound the hell out of it. Abuse therapy. :slight_smile:

Or, you can just pretend it’s mouthbreather.

I just haven’t been the same since that house fell on my sister.

35

'Scuse me here, but there are aspects of work that are loathed, dreaded and abominated but not unexpected. That doesn’t make 'em any less onerous. Hell, Scott Adams has made a mint off of it. Hating stupidity and waste doesn’t equal weakness.

Sorry, mouthbreather, but Eve was precisely right in her choice of venue. She wasn’t posing it as a great debate, or a topic of light laughter. She was mad as hell, said so and said why. This is the place to vent, the rubber room when the stupidity, waste and bullshit becomes overwhelming.

Work requires all kindsa “stuff”; doesn’t mean it isn’t dreaded and dire.

I, for one, am glad to cuss, commiserate and encourage Eve in her socially responsible alternative to donning Army Surplus clothing, climbing a tall structure and mowing down innocents with a Charleton Heston approved assault rifle.

Veb

36

Eve, More??? I thought we were talking about Boink!, the homosexual inflatable animal fetish mag! Never mind what I said earlier then.

Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.

37

Thanks, all, for the kind words and sympathy—I think I will print this out to pin up at my desk.

And, Mouthbreather, if you can breathe through your nose for a moment, let’s kiss and make up.

Oy, back to work . . . came in this morning to find what looks like an entire forest’s worth of paper sitting in my in-box . . .

38

Nooooo! ME! ME!!!

FWIW - Eve’s right, putting any publication to bed is a complete nightmare. I worked so hard and so long to close this one (auction company) catalog that I woke up one morning and literally couldn’t see. I’d strained my eyes so badly going over and over and over everything “one last time,” that the eye doc couldn’t even do any tests because the results would have been so skewed as to be useless. I had to go home and not use my eyes for a week (yeah, right) before I could get tested, and the damage WASN’T temporary. I now have to wear glasses to read coherently… what I did for love (of words)!

StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”

39

Funny…I’m sure a lot of people would consider what Eve does (and what I do) a kind of “dream job.” In my business (TV), people break their backs trying to get their foot in the door only to be completely burned out by age 30. All that glitters is a lot of shit I guess…

“My hovercraft is full of eels.”

40

Eve,
Maybe you should get together with EDEN.

Looks like you’ve something in common it could be the start of something big,or sad.
:slight_smile: