Dana, I'm in the I hate everyone boat with you. We'll hate together, it'll be cozy and warm from the fire of our hate.

Steph, I KNOW, good god. I was calm, I said, ask the author for another copy and from now on keep the original and work on a copy, and she agreed, but man. She's been doing this for years, long before I took over this journal. I had NO IDEA this was happening. It never occurred to me that I'd have to tell anyone not to destroy the original. Idiot. Thank Bosco I found this out in a relatively harmless way before she did any real damage.

But she still has a copy of the submission in e-mail, right? Or she is tracking changes she can see what the original was, right?

NO. We get the submissions through a 3rd party service (called ScholarOne). AFAIK S1 doesn't hold on to copies of anything that passes through its mighty halls. And apparently she wasn't tracking changes. She just blithely rewrites the original submission. I just... can't even.

Wow. In the software development world, the idea of not being able to go back to the previous version of a file just doesn't compute.

Sits with Dana.

My goal today is to interact as little as possible. I may set a record this week on completed paperwork.

She's been editing the submissions and not keeping a copy of the originals.

That is completely ridiculous and utterly unprofessional.

I don't hate everyone today because roughly half of everyone is out of the office. And the others are either very quiet or sending me the thing I've asked for. Good office. *pets it gently* Biscuit!

Actually, it's a little unnerving. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We get the submissions through a 3rd party service (called ScholarOne). AFAIK S1 doesn't hold on to copies of anything that passes through its mighty halls. And apparently she wasn't tracking changes.

I'm actually freaking out internally at this. Even though the AMA keeps copies of every single draft, the very first thing I do when I download an article to edit is to make a copy so that I have a clean, pre-edited copy in case I need to refer to it. (Although I also track all my changes except bullshit ones like removing a hard return or changing a spelled-out number to a numeral.)

She just blithely rewrites the original submission.

I am astounded at this. WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL.

I also hate everyone this morning.

Perhaps especially people who don't understand the concept of a version control system.

I don't hate everyone, but one of my authors is getting on my last nerve. Actual question: "We need to add an acknowledgement to Dr. So-and-so, who provided the consent form. Actually, can we add her as an author?" SERIOUSLY? You want to add someone as an author at this stage of the process? Also, the requirements for authorship involve more than just providing a goddamn form WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

I do something similar with the InDesign files of one or two page in-house marketing flyers and such, where I don't want to have a bazillion versions of the source files on my computer in case someone else needs to output something while I'm away. But I always have the first-pass, second-pass, etc. review PDFs to refer to should it ever be necessary. Anything for an outside client gets a copy saved at each step in case we're told to go back to whatever version or there's an invoice dispute over the amount of changes agreed upon.

Something I really don't understand is why MS Word doesn't have integration with version control software. It seems like such a natural.