What a week
Sep. 11th, 2011 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
outsdrThe past week was probably the busiest one I've ever experienced at the newspaper. On top of the three weekly publications we normally put, there was also a 24 page special supplement to be built and finished, ads built for another 24 page special suplement, a special advertisement thank you page for contractors of the new college classroom expansion to be made, and a special 2-page 9/11 memorial to put together.
Add to that the freelance book cover I was designing, and that the week was a day short due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday, AND top it off that I was working with only one thumb ... I was borderline overwhelmed; definitely overworked, especially with calls coming from the hotel for various tech support issues. By Wednesday evening, I was so beaten down that I felt beaten up.
Like everything, this too did pass. Thursday was the day to build the special 24 page supplement, and i went into the day without any idea what the cover design would be this year (it's an annual publication.) The benefit of working a job for seven years in addition to being relatively competent is that I usually get carte blanche on what I want to do when it comes to cover designs. By mid-day, I was beginning to panic a little, because I still had nary a single idea nor the time to execute one when it came along. But, while working on something unrelated, and idea bubbled up in my head and I was able to get a cover built and executed in about 45 minutes.
Not my best work, but not my worst, either. I was happy with the way it turned out (although I haven't seen it off the press yet.) Considering the conditions I was working under, I'm satisfied.
Thursday night i worked on revisions to the book cover; the author decided to make things a lot more complex than the original black & white with some text and pictures cover he first described to me. Friday morning he let me know I was headed in the right direction, and he described a few more changes (over the course of six more emails!) and that he'd call me saturday afternoon.
And that he'd just been diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
Friday night at the hotel was a bear. I got very little sleep after work on Friday (at the end, I think I did at least two days of work in one Friday) before heading to the hotel for the night. I've been working with our property management system's software developers to redo our entire rate set up, as what we have in place is basically still the same structure that was setup seven years ago, and as bits and bobs have been added on to over the years, it's become a mess. We got everything worked out, although as usual with any targeted proprietary niche software, the only way to find problems is to actually use the new setup and see what floats to the surface.
We also had a wedding group in house, as well as high school football teams. The wedding group got drunk and obnoxious; my thumb ached all night, and by the time I got off work at 6, i was so tired I felt like puking. I got home, fed the pets, and went straight to bed ...
To be woken up three hours later when all the airplanes started flaying around. See, we're a town of 7,000. And even though we do have a small airport, it's very rare to hear planes flying by over head- jets are never seen, not even contrails. Saturday was the annual Fly-In and Car Show, and lots of planes wer ein the air giving a show. With their loud, droning, unaccustomed-to-my-ears engines. And I foudn it impossible to sleep through, although I gave it a valiant effort. I gave up by 11 am, got out of bed and finished off the book cover revisions. Andy and I played Bordrlands for awhile, went out for lunch aorund 1, and just before John was to call me about the book cover, I took a break from the game and emailed the revised cover to him.
He never did call, which is not unusual. He did send me three more emails that night.
Watched Doctor Who, loved it, went off to work once more at the hotel. Had more trouble with the wedding party, spent an hour talking to one member of the group who was really upset with how their party had been handled, managed to send him away happy, and drank so much coffee I felt like puking again. Towards morning, I talked to the manager about a guest that had made a big online complaint about his stay- while he was still checked in. I wasked if she could come down and meet me when I got off shift to decide how to handle the matter (she lives on the property, and the guest was due to checkout that morning). He hemmed and hawed and asked me what I thought we should do about the complaint and made me make all the decisions while making it sound like it was her idea. Finally got done with that around 7, went and scored breakfast at the hotel's half-way decent bbreakfast buffet, and went home, too wired to actually sleep. Worked on the final revisions for the cover, talked to Andy a little when he got up, read comics for awhile, dealt with the hotel manager when she called me at 10 to discuss Mr. Angry Guest again (the story just got stranger and we're not sure what actually happened in the situation, but what was done was done and hompefully what we did resolved matters.)
Finally I drifted off to sleep around 10:30. At 12, the phone rang. When you work on call like I do, a ringing phone is worse than a loud alarm clock. It will jolt me out of sleep with a burst of adrenalin that usually ruins any attempt to return to sleep for the next hour. They weren't even gracious enough to leave a message. I ended up just getting up for the day.
John loved the cover revisions, but was unhappy with the title lettering- he felt it got lost and didn't stand out. I worked on it for another hour, came up with a solution i was happy with, emailed it to him, and started working on my September column. Andy ordered pizza about an hour later, and it arrived just as i finished the first draft of the column.
We sat down to eat and watch Burn Notice (highly recommended!). Between episodes, I received an email from John about the cover.
"I think you've created a work of ART! I see what you did; the black in title etc would not have "lifted" it above the surface. You picked a neutral tone that makes it perfect. (I like the color--it was Bonnie's color.) Nothing further needed (except the barcode, and I'll get Stuart to email it, and send your check by mail). A super job, Tim."
Good to know I can still pull off a cover design that makes him happy. The $200 he's paying me for the design will come in handy, too.
Now, I'm going to give my new column a read through, and then head to bed with a stack of comics and a sleepy doggy. I look forward to tomorrow, because the damned thumb stitches get to come out.
Add to that the freelance book cover I was designing, and that the week was a day short due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday, AND top it off that I was working with only one thumb ... I was borderline overwhelmed; definitely overworked, especially with calls coming from the hotel for various tech support issues. By Wednesday evening, I was so beaten down that I felt beaten up.
Like everything, this too did pass. Thursday was the day to build the special 24 page supplement, and i went into the day without any idea what the cover design would be this year (it's an annual publication.) The benefit of working a job for seven years in addition to being relatively competent is that I usually get carte blanche on what I want to do when it comes to cover designs. By mid-day, I was beginning to panic a little, because I still had nary a single idea nor the time to execute one when it came along. But, while working on something unrelated, and idea bubbled up in my head and I was able to get a cover built and executed in about 45 minutes.
Not my best work, but not my worst, either. I was happy with the way it turned out (although I haven't seen it off the press yet.) Considering the conditions I was working under, I'm satisfied.
Thursday night i worked on revisions to the book cover; the author decided to make things a lot more complex than the original black & white with some text and pictures cover he first described to me. Friday morning he let me know I was headed in the right direction, and he described a few more changes (over the course of six more emails!) and that he'd call me saturday afternoon.
And that he'd just been diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
Friday night at the hotel was a bear. I got very little sleep after work on Friday (at the end, I think I did at least two days of work in one Friday) before heading to the hotel for the night. I've been working with our property management system's software developers to redo our entire rate set up, as what we have in place is basically still the same structure that was setup seven years ago, and as bits and bobs have been added on to over the years, it's become a mess. We got everything worked out, although as usual with any targeted proprietary niche software, the only way to find problems is to actually use the new setup and see what floats to the surface.
We also had a wedding group in house, as well as high school football teams. The wedding group got drunk and obnoxious; my thumb ached all night, and by the time I got off work at 6, i was so tired I felt like puking. I got home, fed the pets, and went straight to bed ...
To be woken up three hours later when all the airplanes started flaying around. See, we're a town of 7,000. And even though we do have a small airport, it's very rare to hear planes flying by over head- jets are never seen, not even contrails. Saturday was the annual Fly-In and Car Show, and lots of planes wer ein the air giving a show. With their loud, droning, unaccustomed-to-my-ears engines. And I foudn it impossible to sleep through, although I gave it a valiant effort. I gave up by 11 am, got out of bed and finished off the book cover revisions. Andy and I played Bordrlands for awhile, went out for lunch aorund 1, and just before John was to call me about the book cover, I took a break from the game and emailed the revised cover to him.
He never did call, which is not unusual. He did send me three more emails that night.
Watched Doctor Who, loved it, went off to work once more at the hotel. Had more trouble with the wedding party, spent an hour talking to one member of the group who was really upset with how their party had been handled, managed to send him away happy, and drank so much coffee I felt like puking again. Towards morning, I talked to the manager about a guest that had made a big online complaint about his stay- while he was still checked in. I wasked if she could come down and meet me when I got off shift to decide how to handle the matter (she lives on the property, and the guest was due to checkout that morning). He hemmed and hawed and asked me what I thought we should do about the complaint and made me make all the decisions while making it sound like it was her idea. Finally got done with that around 7, went and scored breakfast at the hotel's half-way decent bbreakfast buffet, and went home, too wired to actually sleep. Worked on the final revisions for the cover, talked to Andy a little when he got up, read comics for awhile, dealt with the hotel manager when she called me at 10 to discuss Mr. Angry Guest again (the story just got stranger and we're not sure what actually happened in the situation, but what was done was done and hompefully what we did resolved matters.)
Finally I drifted off to sleep around 10:30. At 12, the phone rang. When you work on call like I do, a ringing phone is worse than a loud alarm clock. It will jolt me out of sleep with a burst of adrenalin that usually ruins any attempt to return to sleep for the next hour. They weren't even gracious enough to leave a message. I ended up just getting up for the day.
John loved the cover revisions, but was unhappy with the title lettering- he felt it got lost and didn't stand out. I worked on it for another hour, came up with a solution i was happy with, emailed it to him, and started working on my September column. Andy ordered pizza about an hour later, and it arrived just as i finished the first draft of the column.
We sat down to eat and watch Burn Notice (highly recommended!). Between episodes, I received an email from John about the cover.
"I think you've created a work of ART! I see what you did; the black in title etc would not have "lifted" it above the surface. You picked a neutral tone that makes it perfect. (I like the color--it was Bonnie's color.) Nothing further needed (except the barcode, and I'll get Stuart to email it, and send your check by mail). A super job, Tim."
Good to know I can still pull off a cover design that makes him happy. The $200 he's paying me for the design will come in handy, too.
Now, I'm going to give my new column a read through, and then head to bed with a stack of comics and a sleepy doggy. I look forward to tomorrow, because the damned thumb stitches get to come out.
