Chicago: customers are advised to allow extra travel time

I don't think Jesse was mean, I think what he said is true...but one could be charitable and assume that was John meant was more like "at this point is my life, since my basic needs are met, I value my time more." Of course the equation shifts when basic needs are threatened.

Fortunately, I don't have to work overtime that much at this job. At my last job, if you weren't working more than 40 hours/week, you weren't considered a good employee. "That's publishing," they said, as if that explained it, rather than the fact that they were short-staffed.

xpost yeah, the true/charitable scale bites me in the ass all the time, too. :(

"at this point is my life, since my basic needs are met, I value my time more."

Right, of course. As long as I can pay my rent and groceries and can afford to go out and have fun once in a while, then I'd rather have more free time than more money. If you're working all the time, how do you ever enjoy the extra money? This is all sort of an extension, too, of my disappointment about how I'm not as productively creative as I was when I was younger, and there are several reasons for that, but one of them is that a 9-5 schedule makes it tough to work up the inspiration to make art. I long for solitary mornings when my mind is fresh.

Well, the reason JMC's statement grated was that he stated it as "truth" instead of moderating it as something transitory or subjective. Which is totally understandable, but also totally John.

Er xp.

I don't think I needed to qualify it as subjective -- should I precede all my posts with "in my opinion"?

we've talked about this before.

xpost to laurel It's also totally me. Whatever, it's not easy to get your intentions across without the gentle music of spoken language. :)

Plus, I think Kenan is way more guilty of "stating things as 'truth.'"

xp

IT'S LIKE WE ARE OF ONE MIND OH NO

Hahah yes but when Kenan does it it's patently ridiculous and a clearly matter of taste/style rather than anything substantive, and no one listens to him anyway. ;)

people listen to jaymc?

OK, let's break this down then:

Good God, no.

"I disagree."

I hate overtime.

"I personally hate overtime."

Time >>>>>>>> Money.

"In my opinion, time is more valuable than money."

I really don't understand how this is being read as anything other than subjective, and it bothers me because I like to think I actually take pains to qualify things when others don't.

The ">>>>>>" is something that's used on lots of threads, and when someone says, "GZA >> RZA >> Raekwon >>>>>>>>> U-God," no one actually thinks that that's anything other than someone's opinion.

I mean, how ridiculous would it be if I actually meant that EVERYONE should value time more than money? Give me some credit already.

jaymc, whats the best way to break into publishing, but not work more than 40 hrs a week? did you temp first, or have a connection, or just luck into something?

how ridiculous would it be if I actually meant that EVERYONE should value time more than money?

where would we be if some children weren't forced to work 14 hour days?

Jeez, i know plenty of people who make decisions in life and lifestyle based on how much time and energy they want to put into paying work versus their families, nonpaying passions, etc. getting the privledge to choose work by getting a degree and building a resume and balancing work with the rest of life is nothing to be ashamed of.

I don't know, deej, I've only had two jobs in the last seven years! The first one I found through the classifieds, and this one I got through a combination of knowing someone (a friend of my brother's works here) and the fact that the previous job entailed some contract work for Current Company and so I was already familiar with one of the products.

So I can't speak as to what's typical in the publishing industry at all. But I guess I assume that part of the difference for me is that the previous place was a small, 15-year-old family-run company that kept changing its focus and taking on more and more clients and subsequently often found itself in over its head, whereas my current job is for a company that's been around for over 200 years and only really has a few different projects, all of which are internally managed, so rarely are there any significant wrenches in the system.

i am not going to read that post, it's long and dull

small, 15-year-old family-run company

Haha, I forgot for a second that you knew Luk3 Cruml3y.

HEY GUYS! LET'S PLAY A GAME CALLED "GET JAYMC ALL WOUND UP AND DEFENSIVE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING"

Deej, don't ever work in Editorial, that's how. It's underpaid and over-credited (in the sense that yr managers will be all like "Of course you work 60 hrs a week for peanuts, we're paying you in PRESTIGE, lackey.") and your boss will be shirty if you leave before 7pm and/or don't take a satchel of manuscripts home with you.

That said, everyone in every department will have busy periods in the publishing season, depending on what stage of the process they deal with. Which I suspect is like every other business ever...?

lol luk3 the k00k xxp

I mean, karl fuckin marx wanted to free us from being chained to our work. some of us accmplish this by choosing not to live in new york city and paying 450/mo rent instead.

xp There are lots of different Editorial Departments, though. I don't doubt that it's true for a Manhattan book-publishing conglomerate, but I suspect there are substantial differences between NYC and Chicago, large press and small, mass-market and academic, etc.

chicago basically has no publishing industry

Sure, maybe Dan will weigh in about academic pub life later. I have, however, worked for both large commercial houses and small privately owned ones and found the smaller press was way more hardcore about old-fashioned publishing "sacrifice the lackeys" management and privilige/prestige bullsuit.

Neither does your mom

xpost

after my current non-prof job i am definitely looking for something w/ fewer hours, but i also would want it to at least be in the area i'm interested in ... publishing, copyediting, something

my mom published me

Don't hate chicago playaz for having free time and walking-around money, laurel,hate the nyc game like we do.

Actually my current multi-national media conglomerate overlord is WAY more relaxed than H. H0lt was -- I was SHOCKED when I started here that people actually left on time. Granted that's more true in Production than in say, Adult Editorial, but still, there's a feeling here that everyone deserves to be reasonably happy with their jobs, rather than only the people who have important authors in their Rolodexes. It's nice.

Eazy, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, a little. Or maybe just the wrong stick. But never mind!

my mom published me

touche

xpost haha

Yeah, aren't all jobs in Manhattan like that? "Work work work, this is the big time, kid!"

chicago basically has no publishing industry

Then how have I been eating for the last seven years? There are a lot of textbook publishers here: McDougal-Littell, Scott Foresman, branches of McGraw-Hill. Two encylopedias: Britannica and World Book. Playboy and Jet.

yeah, all the stuff that people read.

I'm ready for my partay. Too bad I have to wait another 2 1/2 weeks.

I value my time ALOT, which is why I insisted on a job with regular business hours and no possibility of overtime or taking work home (even taking work home in my head!). I need to be able to not think about work at all when I'm not there, or at least not be a big ball of stress. I need to be able to spend as much time as possible with people I CHOOSE to be around, doing things that make me happy. Life is short.

Also, deej, there are job listings at Chicago Women in Publishing's website, but I think you have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to become a member and view them.

Sarah OTM.

yeah, all the stuff that people read.

It's definitely less of a mass-market industry than NYC, but it's disingenuous to say that it doesn't exist at all.

It's THURSDAY. I love Thursdays.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/417875_892c7d239d.jpg?v=0

Thursdays are great because it means a new Reader crossword puzzle.

thursday is the night we make love.

awww yeah.

Is that a reference to that Flight of the Conchords song?

I am at the library. Breaking your computer sucks, don't do it.

We are taking the laptop to the Apple store tonight to see how f'ed up it is. It turns on and I can see the files on our desktop still sitting there. However, the keyboard and mousepad are nonfunctional, so I have no way of seeing if all our info is still actually there. My hope is that only the keyboard and mousepad are broken, and we can just buy an external keyboard and mouse and use those for a while until we save up enough money for a new computer. My fear is that the hard drive is corrupted and I just don't know it yet.

Is that a reference to that Flight of the Conchords song?

no, it's a reference to makin' loooove

The show last night was really fun. I was at that perfect level of drunkeness where I was relaxed and having fun but not so messed up that I was sloppy or couldn't play right.

OK, I don't know whether you're kidding or not, but there's a Flight of the Conchords song that I reviewed the other day about how Wednesday is the night for making love. As cringe-inducing as you'd expect a couple of white guy doing an funk/R&B lover-man parody would be.

I'm pretty sure Kenan is kidding, as he had a FotC quote as his gmail status message for a long time.

Alright, I'm going to go look at books and then maybe go get some coffee or something.