Tag Archives: work

The Power of Annoyance

02 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Goals, Growing Up, Publishing

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In my sophomore year of college, my sociology professor had us read this book by Edward Bellamy, called Looking Backward. The story, theoretically, was about a guy who pulls some Rip Van Winkle stunt and sleeps himself into the next century. Really, the book was an excuse for Bellamy to use characters as his mouthpiece for his theory of the perfect utopian society. The story felt lifeless, the theory was full of holes, and the phrase “heaving bosom” appeared near the end of the book (one of my top five least favorite phrases in the English language).

I was outraged. I could have written a more believable societal structure in my sleep! And a better plot! When I pulled my professor aside after class to rant at him for five minutes about how much I hated the book, though, he was oddly pleased. It didn’t matter to him whether I loved or detested the reading material he assigned; what was important to him was that I got invested enough to be passionate about it.

Which brings us to present day. I mentioned before that I’m currently reading a career development book by an author who I find completely insufferable. He comes across to me as one of those slick, arrogant, narcissistic types who only reaches out to remind themselves of their own power: “You look so miserable down there. Let me tell you about the amazing things I did to make sure I’ll never be like you.”

“I like my work,” I snarled at the pages. “I don’t buy into the outsource-your-life philosophy you’re selling. I want to live my own life, thank you very much.”

Then I remembered Bellamy. So I put down the book for a moment and tried to figure out what it was that was irritating me so much about this author. I decided I didn’t like the way he presented what seemed to me to be very difficult tasks and acted like everyone should be able to do them. Contact celebrities, for example–who was he to assume that some anonymous person could call up someone important at random for an interview? What happened to pounding the pavement with the rest of the proles, you jerk?

And then I realized I didn’t like the way I was sounding, so I decided, you know what, I’m going to try it. There’s an article I’m writing about diets and eating disorders and how to teach children about being healthy, and I emailed the president of the National Eating Disorder Association to ask for an interview.

And I got it. It’s scheduled for Wednesday.

Being annoyed is not always a bad thing. Knowing why something gets under your skin can reveal a lot about you–what you’re scared of, what your ideas and theories are, which direction you need to push yourself. I may not agree with the rest of that insufferable book, but I’m going to keep reading it. If his life principles irritate the hell out of me, it’s not the worst place I could start to get a firmer grasp on my own.

What Do Project Managers Do?

05 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in Publishing, Uncategorized, Work, Writing

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One of the things I love about WordPress is that I can see what searches led people to my site. Mostly it’s my name, or Nick and Sheila Pye (not totally sure why–maybe they don’t get written about often enough? Anyway.). Today, though, there was a whole question:

“I am a new Project Manager. What will I receive on my first day of work?”

And I thought, “Huh. I have been a Project Manager for all of five weeks and I already take it for granted that I know what it is that I do.” And then I realized that probably most of my friends don’t know what I do. So, in case you wondered:

Being a Project Manager is primarily a scheduling job. When I get assigned a book, the first thing I have to do is review the schedule I get from the publisher. They’ll tell me when they need to see design samples (pages with sidebars, figures, illustrations, etc. set in with the text) and copyediting samples, when the author needs to get a copy of the book to make final comments and changes (and answer copyeditors’ questions), and when the book needs to be ready to go to the printer. From that assignment schedule, my job is to know what the Art Department and copyeditors are doing so I can make sure the book gets done on time.

Being a Project Manager may also mean doing a lot of copyediting yourself, and a heck of a lot of proofreading. I’m in a small company, so if we can avoid outsourcing copyediting too much, we do.

Note: For those who are unsure of the difference, copyediting means checking a manuscript not only for basic grammar and spelling errors, but also making sure the work fits the publisher’s style (do you say email, e-mail, or E-mail? Is Internet capitalized? Is “timeframe” one or two words?). Proofreading is comparing versions of a manuscript to make sure all the edits from the previous draft made it into the next version, and are both consistent and correct. When you might have half a dozen people editing one chapter, it’s important to look over and make sure one person isn’t adding commas while another is taking them out.

Finally, since this is a small office and we don’t have a receptionist or secretary, my day also involves some administrative work: answering phones, scanning files to colleagues overseas, etc. My boss also sometimes asks for additional projects, such as learning how to use Sharepoint and give short presentations on it.

Overall, I’d estimate I spend about 15%-25% of my time managing schedules and communicating between departments, about 70%-80% of my time copyediting and proofreading, and 5%-10% of my time on administrative tasks.

New Job!!

06 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by in Goals, Publishing

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After nine crazy months of working three part-time jobs in three different cities (Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Annapolis), I’ve landed a new position that should make my life ten times easier. Starting at the end of the month, I’ll be the new Project Manager for a publishing service company (they take projects for publishing companies, such as formatting print books to be e-books, handling the layout and design for manuscripts, etc.).

A quick caveat to the celebration that’s about to go on here: I am keeping the Youth Director position, mostly because I really enjoy it and feel invested in the kids, and also because I still need that income to make ends meet. Because of this, I will still be pulling the 50-hour shift for the time being. That said, here is what I am looking forward to with this career change:

1. It’s in my field. Publishing is highly competitive, and there aren’t too many opportunities in this area. Between getting to spend my work days doing what I want to do and getting a foot in the door of the industry, this is a fantastic shift from doing filing work for a company where I’m neither qualified or interested in rising up the ranks.

2. It’s in my city. Or close enough. I’m about a half-hour drive from Gwynn Oak to Towson, instead of an hour to hour-and-a-half drive, plus half-hour Metro trip to D.C. I get to get up at 7:15 instead of 6:00 a.m., and will get home closer to 5:45 than 6:45 or 7:00 p.m.

3. I eliminate the Metro from my life. Unless there’s an exhibit or something in D.C. that I want to see for fun, Metro commuting is over. No more spending $40 a week on parking and Metro passes, no crowded cars or waiting for trains or gloomy platforms. I am well aware that on-the-road rush hour’s no fun, either, but I am very happy to know that when I am stuck in traffic now, at least I will be able to see the sky.

4. It’s much more challenging than what I was doing before. This job will be a lot closer to the work I was doing as an Editorial Assistant at Passager than as a law clerk, and it will probably be even more involved than at Passager, since it’s full-time and I may even have people (like proofreaders) working under me. It’s a weird thought, and an exciting one. I’ve been the underling in almost every job I’ve held since graduation. Sometimes it’s been pleasant work and I hardly noticed being at the bottom, sometimes it was made painfully clear how little power I had. Sometimes, like at the law firm, it became the kind of thing I took for granted. It’s a major confidence boost to think that I’m starting in a position where I have some real responsibility to make sure stuff gets done.

The countdown stands at 3 weeks exactly until my first day as Project Manager. I’m looking forward to a few free days and the church mission trip before I start. Money’s a little tight this month, since I’m basically working half-time (only two jobs a week, and one week of only church), but I’m feeling great about the new beginning waiting for me at the end of the month.

Two Jobs and a Midnight Snack

08 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Growing Up, Stories, Writing

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Last May, I was working at a church, and it was awful. The pastor was a perfectionist, slow to praise and quick to point out anything I did wrong. The last straw came when he told me that he’d decided I had five typos left, and then I’d be out of a job. I hadn’t thought I was making that many mistakes, and I knew I was putting effort into my work. I also was involved in other projects, like helping overhaul the website, that were acknowledged minimally, if at all. So I quit.

About a week later, I was chatting to my MFA program director, who’s also the co-founder and editor of a literary magazine, and when she heard I needed work, she offered me a job on the spot. It’s a fantastic job. I’ve learned how to use two new computer programs since I’ve been here (not to mention a new operating system), and gotten markedly better than I used to be at two more. My bosses now are all about exploration and playfulness, and much less about mechanical perfection. I design posters, for example, for guest poets and speakers, for example, and once or twice it’s happened that a typo went to print and it hasn’t been a big deal (I keep wanting to clarify – I really don’t mess up that often, and I catch more errors than I make, but sometimes ‘night’ gets changed to ‘evening’ at the last second and I forget to switch ‘a’ to ‘an’). If I was thoughtless or careless about what I was doing, that would be another story, but in this job the bigger picture of what I’m doing matters more than any little bumps.

I’m still working on making a similar shift in my writing life. I’m still too quick to scold myself for not being as good or fast or prolific as I want to be, and need a hugely significant achievement (see Exhibit A) to happen in order to feel proud of what I’m doing. So I’m trying to quit, or rather I’m trying to be that kind of supportive presence for myself. I’ve got a new essay up in Stories & Things, a little piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while now, but hadn’t, perhaps because I thought it was too light to really matter. Now it’s written, and it made me happy to write it, and I hope someone may read it and like it too, but what’s best is that it is there now when it wasn’t before.