So, there’s this one journal editor who is often a thorn in my side. I mean that in the nicest way possible. She cares deeply about her journal, and wants everything to be just so. It’s actually a really cool journal, and because she cares so much about it, it has really interesting content and looks really, really beautiful. (I realize these are lame descriptions, but I’m being deliberately vague here because I would like to keep this blog from becoming Google-associated with the publications I work on).
But, this means that she always has tons of questions, special requests, etc. An email from her usually makes my heart sink, or at least start beating a little faster (part of this is definitely a pavlovian response to her after the incredibly stressful, upsetting launch of her journal just about a year ago–a story for another day).
Anyway, last week she wrote to ask my advice about an author’s special request–they wanted to include in the agreement they sign with the journal that at any time, they could request that any content from their article (in particular, photographs) be removed from the journal. I wrote kind of a long reply explaining why that’s not a good idea, and also slipped in there that our programmers didn’t want to accommodate a special request she made like two months ago (yeah, that was my fault for not dealing with it earlier).
She wrote back late that night, so when I got in to work Friday morning last week, I saw the message from her. I had lots to do that day, and assumed that her message would require another long complicated response. Also I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I didn’t even read it (that is sort of the lowest of the low, in my job, ignoring messages from people who it’s your job to communicate with. I always feel very guilty but sometimes it feels like the only way to preserve my sanity).
Anyway, this morning I knew I had to deal with it, so I ripped off the band-aid and at 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, opened her message. and all it said was:
“Thanks, Becky, this is very helpful. Have a good weekend!”
Phew.
An executive assistant, a librarian, & an expat walk into a blog... 