Monday. I hate you and all of your works.
I am dealing with an author who is the special-est snowflake to ever put words to paper. It's a fucking 1-page commentary, and he is fighting me on edits that were made so that his commentary is not vague. He says "I do not wish to explain something the reader can look up." THAT'S NOT HOW ARTICLES WORK.
We also have a policy to not use words that are kind of dramatic ("frighteningly, this policy leaves out..." or "the article laments that patients are not treated..."), because the senior management hates that shit and deletes it if we leave it in.
Special snowflake is all "This is an opinion piece -- MY opinion, my words, so leave 'frighteningly' and 'laments' in the paper!" So all I can do is explain that if I leave them in, senior management will probably take them out after the article leaves my hands.
He also commented "You are editing this as though it is a manuscript." SWEET JESUS YOU FOOL WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS???? By its definition, it is a manuscript.
He opened his last email to me with "This is becoming too much work." Seriously, dude? This is a ONE PAGE COMMENTARY. You think it's too much work for *you*??? I'm the one who has to deal with your stupid face.
He needs to die in all the fires. I was so over his shit last week when he told me it was "too hard" to review the PDF of his 1-page paper in Acrobat. STOP IT, EVIL HAND.
Oh, Steph... the continual horror that is other people. Can you kick it to senior management along with the email string showing that you tried? Your company ought to adopt the policy my company has apparently secretly adopted: Give them whatever they want so they'll shut up and be happy.
This morning I've been all "Blah blah blah Monday blah blah stock market plummets blah blah..."
I spent a couple of days last week at a portfolio management convention. It was very useful really, and included some debates (for instance, "Australia is totes heading for a recession" versus "No, no, no, it'll only
feel
like one"). It also included the quote, from an American practitioner, "I think the greatest market failure during the Global Financial Crisis was that we couldn't find a way to put a single banker in jail for what happened."
"You are editing this as though it is a manuscript."
HOW DARE YOU!
He opened his last email to me with "This is becoming too much work."
You know what would make it easier? If he just accepted your edits.
"I do not wish to explain something the reader can look up."
Look for his next article to be a series of Wikipedia links interspersed with commentary like "SCARY!", "DEJECTION" and possibly "KITTENS!".
So basically what this guy is saying is that it is more important for him to look smart than to communicate information to his readers.
Poor Zoe. Poor Laura. I'm glad she's going to be okay.
He opened his last email to me with "This is becoming too much work."
"I'm sorry you find being published in a prestigious journal too taxing. Perhaps you can suggest someone else to write a commentary."
My cold has reached the stage in which it hurts to put on my glasses.
Oh, ugh, Ginger. I hate that.
So basically what this guy is saying is that it is more important for him to look smart than to communicate information to his readers.
Ding ding ding!
