A Hard Day's Night

Ahhh, the publishing business...

One of our cities has a new manager, and the poor lady didn't know to refresh her screen often. As a result, an important ad got left out of the publication. She calls me scared to death, afraid of losing a client that they've been chasing for months.

I put on my best "let me see what I can do" voice, and have one of my asst. managers call the printer while I hunt up the missing ad and place it in the book. He can't get them on the phone to see if it's already gone to plate, so I make an executive call and upload the sucker anyway in hopes that it's not too late. When I follow up myself with a phone call, I happen to catch the pre-press guy (guess he was on lunch break earlier) and ask if it's all good. He confirms it's there, not too late, and that we're good to go.

I call the worried sales manager and relay to good news. She's beside herself with joy and promises to never do it again, to which give her my best "it's all part of the job, ma'am".

Half an hour later, I get a call from her regional VP, saying, "I know everyone's been told already, but I just wanted to hear it straight from your mouth." I assure him that we're golden, and this seasoned publishing vet in turn assures me that in his many years in the business, ours is the best graphic design team he's ever had the pleasure of working with.

I work 12 hour days on Fridays, and some of those hours entail me waiting around just in case something like this happens. Most of time it's tedious, but on days like this, it's so worth it.