The Cellar - View Single Post

Glinda · 10-03-2018, 01:45 AM

Please excuse me, but I need to vent.

I had an entirely fucked up day.

I'm a freelance writer/editor/proofreader. Currently, I'm editing/proofing a 1300-page med school training book (25th edition). For the last six weeks or so, the project manager has sent me three chapters a week which I tweak and adjust, and then return.

On Friday afternoon, I got an email from a new (?!) project manager for this book, saying "When I reviewed the schedule, I realize we are really short on time and we'll never make the FTP date if we don't finish proofing pages before the end of October." She then asked me to (at least try to) start completing a chapter a day for the next 10 days. And once those are done, there's another 10 chapters that have to be done by the end of October. Huh.

Mind you, it takes a good six to eight hours to complete one 20-25 page chapter file (40-page chapters obviously take nearly twice as long). I need to have Chapters 19 - 26 done by October 10th. Those chapters are all 35 to 45 pages long. So . . . . yeah.

Now, these chapter files are necessarily dense with medical terms and confusing procedures (i.e., medicalise), so just trying to edit/proof a single sentence is mind-numbing. These chapters are also filled with illustrations, photos, graphs, charts, and tables. My job is to check EVERYTHING (not just words) against separate files for each collection of like items. So, for each chapter I've got a gigantic pdf file of the final proof chapter, a Word file for the actual words, a Word glossary file for medical terms, a photo file (pdf), a table/chart file (excel), and two different Word style guide files (which occasionally contradict each other, btw; yay).

So last night, as I was working on Chapter 18, my poor old Dell refurbished computer had had enough. It simply would NOT save the final proof file I'd been working on. I tried everything. Couldn't save it to the computer, couldn't save it to a thumb drive, and saving it to the cloud wasn't an option. I was finally able to send it to myself in an email. But I still couldn't save it, which meant I wouldn't be able to upload it to the company's Dropbox account when I was done with it. That's why the cloud wasn't an option; I had to have an actual pdf file on my computer that I could upload, but my computer was having none of it.

Ok. *deep breath* What now?

I dragged my father's computer (much better than mine) out of the closet and hooked it up, then spent an hour or so trying to get into it (no idea what dad's passwords were). I'm freakin' amazed I finally McGivered it. Then I had to upload all sorts of files and programs that I need in order to do what I do, that (natch) weren't on dad's computer. Finally, around 3:30, I was ready to get back to editing Chapter 18. At 4:35, the power went out.

Just got power back an hour ago. Please kill me now.

10-03-2018, 01:45 AM	#6568
Glinda Fucktard Resistance League Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: 1.14 acres of heaven Posts: 1,512	Please excuse me, but I need to vent. I had an entirely fucked up day. I'm a freelance writer/editor/proofreader. Currently, I'm editing/proofing a 1300-page med school training book (25th edition). For the last six weeks or so, the project manager has sent me three chapters a week which I tweak and adjust, and then return. On Friday afternoon, I got an email from a new (?!) project manager for this book, saying "When I reviewed the schedule, I realize we are really short on time and we'll never make the FTP date if we don't finish proofing pages before the end of October." She then asked me to (at least try to) start completing a chapter a day for the next 10 days. And once those are done, there's another 10 chapters that have to be done by the end of October. Huh. Mind you, it takes a good six to eight hours to complete one 20-25 page chapter file (40-page chapters obviously take nearly twice as long). I need to have Chapters 19 - 26 done by October 10th. Those chapters are all 35 to 45 pages long. So . . . . yeah. Now, these chapter files are necessarily dense with medical terms and confusing procedures (i.e., medicalise), so just trying to edit/proof a single sentence is mind-numbing. These chapters are also filled with illustrations, photos, graphs, charts, and tables. My job is to check EVERYTHING (not just words) against separate files for each collection of like items. So, for each chapter I've got a gigantic pdf file of the final proof chapter, a Word file for the actual words, a Word glossary file for medical terms, a photo file (pdf), a table/chart file (excel), and two different Word style guide files (which occasionally contradict each other, btw; yay). So last night, as I was working on Chapter 18, my poor old Dell refurbished computer had had enough. It simply would NOT save the final proof file I'd been working on. I tried everything. Couldn't save it to the computer, couldn't save it to a thumb drive, and saving it to the cloud wasn't an option. I was finally able to send it to myself in an email. But I still couldn't save it, which meant I wouldn't be able to upload it to the company's Dropbox account when I was done with it. That's why the cloud wasn't an option; I had to have an actual pdf file on my computer that I could upload, but my computer was having none of it. Ok. deep breath What now? I dragged my father's computer (much better than mine) out of the closet and hooked it up, then spent an hour or so trying to get into it (no idea what dad's passwords were). I'm freakin' amazed I finally McGivered it. Then I had to upload all sorts of files and programs that I need in order to do what I do, that (natch) weren't on dad's computer. Finally, around 3:30, I was ready to get back to editing Chapter 18. At 4:35, the power went out. Just got power back an hour ago. Please kill me now.