Stressor de la semaine

This week, it’s the Thorn.

I fucked up last week and cost the paper $222. According to O., this is “appaling”. Poke, poke, rip.

Part of me wants to go, “Hey, why don’t you take that out of my paych–oh, wait,” but I like money, and I like money for the Thorn, so I most likely should just suck it up and do better this week.

I was cornered last night by our assistant ad manager, who offered (suggested, really) to come in on Thursday nights to double check things.

I came very close to giving the pair of them page 2, which contains only ads and classifieds. That way, as they did contracts and made ads, they could drop it into the page themselves and simply tell us what two or three are left for the remainder of the pages.

But I took page 2 last year so it’s my responsibility. What sucks for the ad managers (and the eds. in chief) is that when I’m generating content for my section, that mos def comes first.

Shittier news section and prettier ads, or a news section closer to what people would want to advertise in and page 2 on lower priority?

So I’m making a checklist of things I need to check for before polishing off page 2.

Since I’m becoming increasingly forgetful, I’m adding this to the checklist for the entire paper before I e-mail it in on Thursday nights.

My predicament is almost funny. I can’t effectively bitch at Luke, because he’s part of the problem and I don’t want to inspire feelings of guilt, should such be possible. Why am I sending off the pages on Thursday nights? Why am I signing off on other sections’ pages? Why am I doing the final checks on the paper as a whole? Because Luke’s not there. Part of me is going, “Well, it’s your job in 15 weeks, anyway. Buck it up and take it early, like you did for the News Editor spot.”

Another part of me is viciously growling, “I’m having trouble with classes, too! Why the fuck do you think I’m running on so little sleep right now? For goddamn tickle sessions?”

The final part of me is using this time to sleep, so it’s not presently responding to inquiries as to its opinion.

Right now, the first part is winning.

I don’t want to bitch at Bob, either, because he’s so close to snapping on some people that I don’t want to do anything other than give him a scalp massage and listen to him rant about his day or Film Club or the Thorn. Because when Bob blows, I don’t know by whom or when or how the pieces will be picked up, and the work he’s doing is of much assistance to all his clubs.

I realized how frustrating things are becoming when I e-mailed out my one story assignment for the week over the weekend and almost cried in relief for even having a damn assignment to give. And for having a writer to take it.

I just need to find a way to manage this (including the building anger) before I end up running “screaming in circles in the middle of our Student Union in the middle of the night” one of these evenings.