Tuesday Bluesday

(Author's Note: Today's mistake was not this bad. But, almost.)

Grrr. Career worries are not fun. I genuinely care about my job, and I absolutely hate with a burning passion any mistakes that make it to print. This week was especially frustrating because I was handling 2 jobs at once -- my own and the job of a co-worker who was on vacation -- and I was extremely careful to ensure that nothing would go wrong.

One of the larger stories had some significant mistakes that needed correcting, and between the news editor, the editor-in-chief, and myself the corrections were made and sent in to the printer. Technicalities aside, I made all the necessary phone calls, e-mails for this page and edits to this page, pouring over it in the final pdf form to make certain that it was as clean as possible.

And when I opened the paper today?
There it was, one of the lead stories, full of mistakes.

The copy from before the massive edits went to print. My stomach constricted and a wave of dread passed over me. I had to grit my teeth and show it to the news editor, and then make a few calls to find out what went wrong, before braving the editor-in-chief. I did everything correctly, and it was a simple mistake at the printer, sending the wrong page to print.

A simple mistake that will be read by thousands, and a few pompous blowhards will send condescending e-mails about how retarded I am to let these mistakes happen. The majority of the e-mails will go to the writer, but what really embarrasses me the most is the ones who won't comment or e-mail, the people who know me in the office, who are my supervisors or friends, who will pick up today's paper and think, "Damn. Natalie can't do her job."