OK, it's near the end of the work shift tonight, and, the one other copy editor there has spit out all four pages for Saturday's religion section, working in advance. I had proofread them, marked up corrections, and stapled a little corrections check list sheet to each one.
He made the corrections, printed out another copy of the pages for a second reading by either the news editor or assistant news editor, the person off whose personality my anxiety level, already on high, has been feeding since being here, and stapled those second pages on top of the first ones, then placed them on the table for "advance" pages. All by the book.
She, the assistant news editor, picked up these pages, noticed the checklist sheet at the back of each "first" page, looked at the un-proofed "second" page on top of each group of three sheets of paper, and asked me where my correction marks were on each page.
When I first started to answer, I could feel the anxiety in my voice, and in my self. I said that I thought I had proofread the pages, then I remembered that I had seen him print out second copies of a couple of the pages, and with a bit more calm in both my voice and my body, said so.
I don't even need an "I'm sorry, I didn't see that." A semi-legitimate, "oh, OK," or even a halfway legitimate "oh," would have been nice.
She didn't say a word, though. She just put the pages back down.
I understand more all the time the managing editor's comment on the phone, when I was considering accepting this job, and he said, "If you're here a year, I'll help you look for other jobs within our company." Maybe that's not at all behind his "if," but it feels that way.
That said, both he and the executive editor commented on my openness at the time. I'll say no more.
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2 comments:
There is no hell equivalent to having to deal with toxic personalities at work. Seriously.
~*
RIP Chani. And, Gene Mr. Asian Eyes moved on to other work after I was there less than a year.
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