We had an author lose his shit with us when he got that scanned PDF about how we "ruined" the "grain" of his figures and we would have to fix them at our expense, blah blah blah. My boss tried to explain that she could send him a PDF generated from the layout program and he would see the resolution is fine, but he wasn't having it. I have no idea how it got resolved. (The resolution of the source art was just fine, and the only problem really was because he got a crappy scanned PDF. I don't expect all authors to know that we send scans, but I do expect them to act like adults when we explain stuff to them.)

In instances like this, don't you wish you could ask them to put their Mommy on the phone so you can explain the process to her?

I've had an editor ask me to cut one page into eight equal sections and then place them on another page (letter-size, like the first) inside a bounding box with instruction lines at the top and margins all around, and not understand that the pieces from the first page couldn't remain at 100% size. Sorry, but if I could change the laws of physics and geometry at will I wouldn't be doing this job!

I've had an editor ask me to cut one page into eight equal sections and then place them on another page (letter-size, like the first) inside a bounding box with instruction lines at the top and margins all around, and not understand that the pieces from the first page couldn't remain at 100% size. Sorry, but if I could change the laws of physics and geometry at will I wouldn't be doing this job!

A co-worker once made a mock-up for me of an ad he wanted me to create, and it involved him shrinking down artwork on the copier and then hand-writing in teeny tiny letters all the information that he wanted in the ad (I secretly suspected he didn't actually know how to use a computer, even though he had one at his desk).

He had to write all the copy in teeny tiny letters because there was so much copy that the only way to make it fit was to make the letters teeny tiny. And yet he didn't understand the fact that, if he had to *write* the letters teeny tiny, then the computer font will have to be teeny tiny. He seriously asked me "Can't your program make the words bigger?"

"Yes," I said, "But then not all of the words will fit on the page."

He STILL didn't understand. It was SO stupid that I would have thought it was an elaborate troll, but time proved that he really was THAT dumb when it came to technology.

(I also had a boss who tried to open ANY file -- .doc, .jpg, .pdf -- through Word's Open menu. She was FURIOUS when the non-Word docs wouldn't open, and ranted about how those files must have a virus.)

ION, I am really hungry for dinner but don't know what I want. This generally leads to a traumatic game of Dinner Chicken in our house, which ends at 10 pm when I angrily make a baked potato and Tim plaintively asks from the other room, "Can I have a potato, too?" WHAT YOU COULD HAVE MADE YOUR OWN HOURS AGO IF YOU REALLY WANTED ONE

Few things make me as ragey as Dinner Chicken, which is why it's good that it so rarely happens. (I usually know exactly what I want for dinner, and because Tim *hates* to decide what to eat, he always goes along with my choice. That works out really well except for times like today, when I seriously can't figure out what my belly wants.)

I mention, again, the people who sent us a fax when we asked for a screenshot.

I mention, again, the people who sent us a fax when we asked for a screenshot.

The thing that still boggles me is when we asked someone for a screenshot, and they sent an iPhone picture of their computer screen.

The thing that still boggles me is when we asked someone for a screenshot, and they sent an iPhone picture of their computer screen.

I've had students do this, numerous times, when they sent me an email with a question about a homework problem from the online homework.

Almost done with the periodontist. I hope. It's been a long day.

At least in my world a phone shot can actually be useful, because all I need is to see what screen they're on so I can tell them where the button they need to click is at.

Anyone ever have to print out a 200+ page website and attempt to arrange the pages in such a way that the CEO, who had never looked at it online, could review it?

Even though the entire purpose of the organization was to share information, he then wanted to take most of the information out because we were a SUPER SEKRIT organization. The fact that it could only be reached with passwords on computers in nuclear plants, and we had been sharing information on a computer network accessed from those plants for a decade or so had no affect on him. Information is only SUPER SEKRIT if it's in black-and-white (or green-and-white) text with none of that fancy stuff. He (and I) are long gone from the organization, but I still twitch occasionally from the experience.

Then there were the people who, when reviewing the copy, indicated the need for two, not one, spaces after every single sentence. That was so prevalent that I finally gave up and wrote macros that added a space before review and another that removed it.

What are people doing this weekend?

I just arrived in San Francisco!