A Day in the Life

If you've ever wondered what an editor does all day, this is for you.

MARCH 19, 2008

9-10 a.m. Arrive to 13 voicemails from readers irate about Coffee Break page. Tuesday's puzzles reprinted in Wednesday's paper. Wait, sorry, 12 messages about Coffee Break, 1 message about whether I will come speak at Leadership Hayward again this year. E-mail Living editor about Coffee Break. Hear back that it was a press operator error (someone grabbed the wrong plate and put it on the press) and only happened in my paper. What luck!

10-11 a.m. Change outgoing voicemail message to say that I am aware of Coffee Break error and working on getting answers to Tuesday puzzles printed in Thursday's paper. People seem to ignore (?) recording and continue leaving messages about error, as in "did you notice that today's Coffee Break page is wrong?" Bang head against desk. Curse life. Delete messages. Work on budgeting Thursday's paper. Call editor at closest sister paper about coordinating our front pages (new system...yuck).

11 a.m. Sit in conference room with coffee and wait 15 minutes for daily conference call. It never comes; I return to my desk. No notice about meeting's lateness. Conference call finally comes through. Participate tacitly.

11:30 a.m. Sister-paper editor calls to whine about something. I half listen while working on budget.

11:45 a.m. Phone continues to ring off hook. I don't answer. Voicemail recording should take care of majority of today's calls. If I answer, I will have an aneurysm speaking to someone. Receive snail mail from reader (for second day in a row) pointing out incorrect use of "whomever" in a story. E-mail copy desk about not gratuitously changing "whoever" to "whomever" in stories and to review their grammar.

11:50 a.m. Contemplate career choice and wonder why we only get so many calls when puzzles are incorrect. It appears people subscribe just for puzzles. Hm. Also, never get any calls about anything good. Apparently, my official job title is Complaint Department Operator. Leave to go meet window guy at home so he can measure windows for replacement.

12-1:15 p.m. Window guy tracks mud all over my clean floor, but quickly measures windows and leave. Indulge in Taco Bell and bring it home to enjoy while watching recorded episode of Dateline. Take slightly longer lunch break because I feel the cosmos owes it to me today.

1:20-2:45 p.m. Arrive to more messages on voicemail about Coffee Break. Don’t people listen?! Here is exact outgoing message (after usual greeting): "If you are calling about today's Coffee Break page, I am aware of the error and working with our Living department to see if we can run the answers to Tuesday's puzzles in Thursday's paper. If you are calling about anything else, please leave a message and I will return it at my earliest convenience. Thank you." WTF? Also, clerk tells me someone called during my break and demanded we issue him a 50-cent check for the error. When the clerk refused, the man demanded to come down and get it from our petty cash (which, coincidentally, we don't have). Utter a few profanities. Continue to fiddle with budget, spend half an hour putting together letters to the editor only to find out new designer isn't up to handling letters yet and they won't run tomorrow, confab with sister-paper editor about possible A1 choices, comb through garbled state-wire pitches.

2:45 p.m. Afternoon conference call. One of the editors sounds like he is raping the speaker until I ask if he can please do whatever he's doing right ON TOP of the speaker, and he realizes it isn't on mute. Otherwise normal meeting.

3-3:30 p.m. Coordinate with sister-paper editor on final A1 choices, finish budget, send to designers. Calls STILL coming in about Coffee Break. Don't know why people would think that at 3:30 p.m. I'm still not aware of a complete reprint of a page. Curse life again. Curse people in general for their snide tone of voice when leaving messages: "Yeah, hello, what the hell are you people doing down there? The Coffee Break is the same as Tuesday. You all need to get your acts together. I don’t know what you think you're doing, but you need to fix it. Call me at blah blah blah..." Yes, right away, my liege. Oh, and just so you know, it takes a whole DAY for a correction to show up, so your impatience in seeing it fixed is ridiculously unnecessary. I can't pull a mimeograph out of my pocket and run off an instant correction for you. Peabrain.

3:30-4:25 p.m. Edit stories, field e-mails about tonight's coverage of Iraq War anniversary protests. As of this writing, voicemail light is on again. OK, just checked it, one voicemail from someone who didn't say why he was calling but wanted me to call him back (no, sorry, you have to tell me why you want me to call you if I'm going to take time out to do it) and one VM from our photographer, who was heading to a last-minute assignment. Speak to whiny dad who is upset that sister paper didn't run anything about his Boy Scout son growing his hair out and donating it to Locks of Love. Answer: They run stuff like that all the time. He says girlfriend spoke to the editor, who was "uncooperative" and then proceeded to run "a bunch of news about Arabs" instead, which was "very un-American." Man wanted to bypass sister paper and make ME run something. I say no, he is in sister paper's coverage area and I don't snipe their coverage. Furthermore, I say I'm not sure what he expects my response to be to claims of un-American-ism –- to be fair, sister paper's coverage area has a heavy concentration of different ethnicities, many of them Arab. He asks if he can bypass me and talk to my boss. I say no, he should try talking to sister editor first. He says no, he already tried that. I say NO you didn’t, your girlfriend did...so why don't you try talking to him yourself? He says yes, I'm right, he should do that. End of call.

4:25-5:15 p.m. Lull in workload. No copy coming in yet. Phone still ringing. Check e-mails, surf Web for a bit, reply to personal e-mails, update budget with new developments, keep staring at sheet music on desk that needs to be learned by tonight. When?! Peruse job listings...nothing good. Take cell call from my sister.

5:15-6:10 p.m. Edit some captions and a story, field questions from copy editors, delegate photo assignments to reporters. Actually find time to quickly review sheet music for tonight. Know songs about 80 percent. Bathroom break. Wait for two lagging reporters to finish and file their stories. Need to be in Alamo by 7. Reporters say "5 more minutes." Which almost always means 20 more minutes. 6:15 –- ah, one is in! OK, edited. Now 6:25. Still waiting for other story. Reporter says "yeah, yeah, I'm done." Don't see it yet... Aha! There it is. Edited. Realized that another sister paper's story about the nurse strike is too focused on their area for us to run as is. Pull in copy of story and tweak it to be more relevant to our area. Send to copy editors.

6:40 p.m. Leave office and dash to rehearsal! Make it there only 10 minutes late.

7:45 p.m. Work calls. Can't find new nurse story I did. I know I sent it, so problem must be with computer program again. (Had same problem earlier in the day.) Advise designer to call night editor at yet another sister paper to see if she can resend for him.

Rest of night is normal.