It's production week on the mag, which means that by Friday, we'll have sent all the PDFs of all of the pages of the July issue to the printer. It's like finals week in college...except that we have finals week every 28 days, and we never graduate.
Not that that's all bad--you may recall that finals week, while to some degrees hellish, can also be kind of fun. If things are moving along at a good clip--which, I'm happy to report, they are here this week--then even though you're under the gun to get stuff completed and corrected and sent, the pressure element is kind of fun. There's a certain camaraderie among the stuff, and super-concentrated bursts of work are punctuated by the super-silly bursts of humor that only happen when people are under pressure and a little bit tired.
There's a tipping point, of course--if things aren't going well (a game is too broken to finish, the printer isn't working, the server is full, someone's come down with the flu, the polybag was misprinted, a last-minute ad is coming in or dropping out), or if everyone's really under-rested, then the goofing off ends up giving way to some raw nerves. It's all part of the process of putting out a magazine, and no one takes it personally or holds a grudge when one of us has a little personality explosion. But I'm happy to report that this week hasn't been that kind of production week. The mini-disasters that always come up have been handled with aplomb, everyone's been getting home at a reasonable hour and getting enough not-at-work time, and to boot, a new giant beanbag showed up in the office. Bonus!
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