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Have you ever wanted to grab someone by the shoulders, shake
them real hard and yell, 'where the hell is your head?' And then
you hear a muffled sound and when you flip them over find out
where their head is and realize that's why nothing ever gets
done.
~*~
They want 5,000 images for the next catalog, which they want
in warehouse ready to ship by Jan 1, '02. Which means we have
to have it to press by Nov. Which means it has to be completely
proofed by October. Which means images must be done by August.
Possible?
No, of course not.
Unless the digitizers never run out of art and never have
to take a day off for illness, death, car wreck or materinity
leave (there's one pregnant now). We have 3 artists now, one
works part time, and one was pulled off catalog designs for a
stupid card. So for this week, there was only 1 full time artist
on catalog designs so the digitizers were running out of art.
Which means a digitizer or two will be pulled of catalog designs
to digitize the damn card not to mention the rinky-dink cards
we do for the big name people.
And what about me? I have to build it. I started pre-production
in January and finished it by Mar 1, which is the date we set
to begin production. But no descisions have been made as to what
paper to print it on much less the format they want it in. We're
looking at about 1,616 pages and they want the nice thick shiny
paper that reproduces color well. That means the catalog will
be close to 3 inches thick and so far we haven't been able to
find anyone in the country that can bind anything that thick.
Two volumes were suggested with the second volume being sewing
info and print it in black and white on cheaper paper.
Since they haven't pulled their head out of their asses to
make a decision on format,we haven't been able to get accurate
bids. And because we don't have a format or bids, we can't start
production. And since production hasn't been started yet they
won't have a catalog ready to ship by Jan 1 and if they don't
have anything to ship, who gets her ass in a sling? ME!
And in order to make a pre-press deadline of Oct 31, I'm going
to have to do serious overtime. Last catalog I was working 14
hr days Mon-Fri and 6 or 7 hrs each on Sat and Sun. That catalong
was not quite 300 pages and I got it done in 4 weeks.
Not this time.
Working like that was hard on me. I can't do that again, I
won't, no matter what they pay me. I lost weight and got sick.
Took me a month to feel human again.
Let's do some math.
1,616 pages at 12 pages a day (normal 8 hr day) is about 135
working days.
20 working days a month.... that's 6.75 months. This is April
and we need proofs back by early Nov.... may, june, july.......
we're going to be cutting it very close. Too close
Not all of those pages I'll be building and not all of those
days I'll be working. I have scanning, mailers, sell sheets and
cards to do as well every month which takes anywere from a week
to 10 days to do.
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