Work rants? Oh goody. Dear Professor Nutbar: Yes, I got your email. Yes, I got your proof corrections. I'm sorry I took two days to respond to your urgent request for the instructions I have already sent you twice. Yes, I will send you a corrected proof to review. I'm terribly sorry our standard formatting destroyed the grace of your beautiful equations; I will personally take two hours and put them all back the way they were and format your article around them, because that's better than listening to you bitch and if I don't you'll run whining to my boss and she'll tell me to give you what you want anyway. No, I cannot arrange to send proofs when there isn't a conference going on; there's always some damn conference going on. Yes, I understand that you're very busy. Sure, have a deadline extension; take all the damn time you want. Just don't be surprised when your article isn't in this month's issue.
You know what we need? Pinch hitters for jobs. Someone to come and do our job for, say, a month; they get the paycheck and we get a vacation instead of a nervous breakdown. Anyone in?