(no subject)

[mikailborg]

Could someone please tell me when the term "deadline", as used in the publishing industry, came to mean "The time at which we'd like to have your final approved materials if you don't mind; but if you do mind it's okay, later will be fine, or tomorrow, or even after we've put the papers out on the racks - it'll be no problem to pull all 30,000 of them and fix the phone number you couldn't bother to double-check..."

All of our advertisers and salespeople seem to have been told about this change, but none of the production staff. Weird, huh?

Comments

[lekythen.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had that happen to me waaaaay back when I worked at ARCoVA. They said 'This has to be done by June 23rd for a governmental deadline.' When I staggered in with the programme complete, but told them it wasn't as neat as I'd like it to be, I was told 'oh, we just came up with an arbitrary date, you know, something you could shoot for.' Shooting was very much in my mind for many days afterwards.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Due to later developments at work, I was in a very foul mood this afternoon. That last sentence was just what I needed to hear - thanks for the grin!

[yubbie.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's not that they can't be bothered, it's that they were blind... I've screwde up at least one print order, after diligently proofreading it thrice, two hours later glancing down at the proof copy, and *now* seeing the glaring typo... And thus being the one that I hate when I'm on the other side of the phone going "Look, I know you said it's printing, but is it *printing* pringing, or is it just sitting around waiting for it's turn at the printer printing??"

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

You must be prescient. That's what I had to do this afternoon... which really messed up my mood. Luckily the lady I had to grovel to is very nice and patient.

The error wouldn't have happened if everyone hadn't been throwing "after the last minute" changes at me this morning, but it's still my fault. Sigh.

[jdunson.livejournal.com]

It's not accidental that the VTSFFC / Tcon rule of thumb is at least two people looking at anything before printing in quantity; over the years, we've had some pretty annoying typos creep through past people who should have seen them (most common - putting the current year for Tcon instead of next year). It's not perfect, though; IIRC one flyer with problems got past me and two other experienced VTSFFCers some years ago.

"What was that whizzing noise that just went past me?"

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I won't be able to make my self-imposed deadline for finishing my story...starting it at the end of February I told myself to have it done by the end of October. But then again, I had that whole wedding thing, along with moving back to SW VA and finding a new job thing, in there, so I guess I can forgive myself.

But deadlines are good for me; I've still gotten a lot more done than I thought I would. I can't imagine folks in the business treating them like suggestions rather than rules.