Working for the man.

Well, that's just silly. I work for the woman. Okay, there's a man or two thrown in there so we have somebody to stomp on the spiders, but mostly, ain't nobody here but us chickens.

There are sooo many more difficult and trying ways to make a living than being a busy and important publishing professional. I get that. In fact, I would hazard to say that there are plenty of people who would gladly knock me in the head to have my job.

Just in case you're one of those people, I thought it might be fun to share with you some of the highlights from a day in the life of a busy and important publishing professional.

8:10am Arrive at the office 5 minutes before the first I-can't-miss-this-because-they-rescheduled-it-to-accommodate-my-schedule meeting of the day. Note and ignore the blinking voicemail message light and the Your-Email-Box-is-Full notification on my computer. Make coffee and scrounge through stinky refrigerator while it brews.

8:15 Attend the first meeting of the day, the weekly Director's Meeting. These meetings are held so everyone has all the information ever available to anyone anyplace ever. The information exchanged in these meetings make it possible for each of us to capably perform our jobs over the next five days. I miss much of the important information shared in this meeting due to the distraction of full bladder.

9:00 Return to desk, braving gauntlet of irate instructional writers in urgent need of copy approval. Promise writers I will look at and mark on urgent instructional copy. Silently vow to ignore promise in favor of tasks I must complete for people who are higher than I on the food chain.

Remember that I am a tiny bit afraid of one of the writers. Mark all over her instructional copy, adding hand-drawn smiley face to my notes.

9:25 Walk four and a half miles to the Art department to steal one of their donuts.

9:30 Attend second urgent meeting of the day. Say the wrong thing. Return to desk by way of the Art department to steal leftover Halloween candy.

10:30 Listen to voice mail messages. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Ignore email messages.

Receive voicemail from boss asking about specific email message.

10:45 Read email messages.

12:00 Have baked potato covered in rice and noodles and cheese brought in for lunch. Accidently get cheese sauce on layout. Circle offending stain and make notation for Art department, "Will this be visible in hi-res? Pls Fix."

1:30 Sleep through third important meeting of the day due to having ingested carbo-loaded lunch and the fact that (inexplicably) no one in the meeting is willing to rub my stomach.

3:00 Send writer on trumped-up errand to Design department so I can rifle through her cube in search of secret pal chocolate candy.

4:00 Review publication schedule. Cry.

4:15 Read Material World Blog. Surf the world wide wonder in search of clever things to publish.

5:00 Gather the four hours of real work I didn't do to take home to complete.

photo, Geri-Jean Blanchard.