We’re wrapping up the February issue and getting ready to start on March. A week or so ago, I had made a couple of suggestions to my boss about very specific things she might or might not want me to do in that issue. Since I hadn’t heard back, I sent a follow-up email today.
Instead of a simple yes or no email in return, she came in and told me there were a couple of major changes she wanted me to make, including cutting down a long feature by about half. This means paying kill fees for the authors, whose *completed *work I’ve already accepted – which offends my cheapskate sensibilities no end, I freaking hate paying for the right to throw completed work into the trash. Plus, oh yeah, filling those pages with stuff on an as-yet-undetermined subject or subjects written by an as-yet-unassigned author or authors – plus, yanno, completely redoing the layout for the issue. Plus putting all of this together and running it past her again for her approval before we can proceed.
My job was a fuck of a lot easier when she was taking less of an interest in what we’re doing back here.
Sigh. It’s Friday afternoon and I have no brain cells available for anything terribly complicated, and yet I still have two hours till I can go home and beat my head against a wall.