five reasons i could have snapped today

1. the colleague who's supposed to be "helping" with the editing is consistently dropping the ball. he "edits" copy and then sends it to me, and it's got errors. typos. missing words. formatting inconsistencies (5mm vs. 5 mm vs. 5 millimetres) between stories. and bad writing that he's inserted into  otherwise perfectly fine writing. i sent him three emails over the past two days, repeatedly reminding him to consult our Style Guide (which he helped write!) and to read over his edits before he sends them to me. after the third one, and after i did reparative surgery on a particularly sloppy story he'd "edited" and sent over, i went to my boss and told him i don't think my colleague really needs to be "helping" any longer.

2. last friday, the client sent an email to two of my colleagues and me, asking if we could prepare a list of articles for her. i immediately emailed my two colleagues (neither of whom report to me) and said, "hey guys, which one of us is going to handle this? i don't want it to fall through the cracks." i then directly addressed colleague #2 in the email saying, "is this something you could pull together?" *crickets* neither one of them replied, and i was fed up with babysitting. this morning, the client sent us all another email, saying that she'd asked for the info, no one had provided it, so she did it herself. WTF?! i immediately replied and apologized, and said it wouldn't happen again... then emailed my two colleagues and said, "THIS is why i emailed you guys on friday! i know people are busy, but this makes us looks bad." again, no reply from anyone. so, i told my boss, who was NOT happy. he asked me to forward him the emails i sent, and said he'd take up with the appropriate parties, since babysitting them was not my job.

3. without asking me, the client volunteered me for a phone call with some fancy-pants big-wig, to get information that she (the client) was supposed to have provided me. i didn't have time for the phone call and, again, this sort of thing isn't my job, it's HERS. thankfully, my boss took my side, said, "no way should you have to do that!" i sent the client a fairly stern email saying i wasn't available. and then i stomped around for a good 10 minutes because i was so infuriated by her presumption. she's not my boss! i don't work for her!

4. with copy due tomorrow, the client asked for a new story. today. that would have to be assigned and written and edited.

5. because of items 1 through 4, i didn't actually have time to write the story *i* needed to write today, but i refuse to do it tonight at home.