I've been away for awhile, not from this ever joyful life we like to refer to as a newspaper, but from the internet. My home computer crashed on Thursday and I've been working on it since. The entire weekend was spent sitting in front of the thing deleting partitions, installing windows, installing software, re-deleting partitions, installing windows... All the while I got caught up on my reading. It's sorta back up and running, but I still have a crap load of programs that still need re-installed.
I'm currently writing from work as I have some down time after getting my 4th paper out... 40 minutes early. Yay! The stress level was much lower this go round. I've decided to just let it happen and not worry about getting things done on time. I'll do what I can and live with whatever doesn't get done. Since I bitched to my boss last week, she helped me with several things and everything got done ahead of schedule.
That's not to say that there wasn't some amount of stress, of course, my stress this week has to do with feeling continually demeaned by my lovely boss and spoken to like I've never heard of things like dominant elements, stylesheets, or layouts. The condescension is made worse by the fact that my boss completely sucks at design. She's spouting off terms that she hardly understands and bitching about style rules that she turns around and breaks while "helping" me layout the paper.
She can't seem to understand why my little brain has any doubt of the "way things are done" when I have a "style guide." This guide is a reduced copy of the newspaper with hand written notes scribbled all over showing the multiple fonts, sizes, lines, etc. that are used throughout the paper. It reveals the 2 different serif fonts used for headlines and text, the 3 different san-serif fonts used for subheads, bylines, etc. This isn't including the different typestyles used for each of these fonts. Even though these are scribbled on an old copy, they have evidently been blessed with holy water and are now sacred law.
I totally respect having a consistent style, but cut me a tad bit of slack when it comes to laying out the articles and photos. It's not like I just graduated design kindergarten. I understand the principles of good design and have been using them for quite some time now. I'm the designer here; let me do my job.
| September 14, 2004 02:58pm | 
art
random mutterings
reviews
shameless entertainment
comment already
because there’s nothing that amuses me more than hearing your pathetic opinion
I hear you guys talking now, and I'm trying to block out the conversation :)
Danielle | September 14, 2004 3:23PM
I hate when I hear my name mentioned in meetings AAH !
Danielle | September 14, 2004 3:28PM
Bummer, didn't you just get that pc fixed?
Maybe your you should push your boss into the press :)
Lynne | September 14, 2004 4:00PM
The problem was a power failure... due to the lack of power... caused by the accidental switching off of the surge protector... oops. Of course, now that I'm back up I've found several viruses so I'm not sure which actually caused the problem.
Lynne, sadly we don't have presses. We send the paper off to be printed. I would totally love to work with a printing press.
nomad | September 14, 2004 4:31PM
Danielle, I totally was thinking of how much you were enjoying hearing the conversation. I'm kinda sad you didn't hear it all... cause I totally don't feel like recounting the whole thing.
nomad | September 14, 2004 4:32PM
I was trying to block it out, I have excellent hearing when I want and I heard a lot of really good things.
Danielle | September 14, 2004 4:53PM