Ack. Thank the dear lord that's over with for another six months. I just spent eight hours listening to ad reps explain about all the reasons why the drop in ad sales by almost half for one of our magazines is in no way their responsibility. I've never heard so much goddam buck passing in my life. I know lots of people deal with this all the time and don't really want to hear me bitch about it, but JESUS CHRIST IN CHA-CHA HEELS! They could pretend to make an effort!

See, the thing is, the editorial department used to be a big dramatic mess before my current boss came in last year. Now it's completely turned around; it's a tight ship; we're underbudget; we're cutting costs; our readers love us; the board of directors love us. The ad reps have never had to deal with the microscope like this before. And boy is it all everybody else's fault.

One guy says it's too much trouble to check his sales reports to make sure that we've gotten his billing correct (right now we've only got eight pages of ads per issue, so how many clients could that be per month?). This is the guy (well, they all do this) who sells NOTHING by the rate card. There's always some deal, so our billing software doesn't really like his sales technique. But boy was he bitchy that the billing is off sometimes. And it's all the financial person's fault.

See, we've got these middle-aged (not like there's anything wrong with middle age) white guys who've always done things the same way with the same people in a traditional industry good ol' boy network, and we're wanting them to sell our magazine to 20- and 30-year-old razor's edge media buyers for high-tech digital companies. They're just not in the same world anymore. And these sales guys aren't hungry 'cause they've got these nice, fat, salaried positions with plenty of regular commission coming in from the other magazine, so why should they bust their butts to sell more? Grrrr!

We need some fresh blood bigtime. Anybody want to sell ads?

I'm SO glad I have a date tonight. Though if I didn't, I'd probably be happy just sitting on the front porch, reading, admiring the day, and drinking heavily.

Moving on - 12:11 p.m. , 2007-08-14

Where the hell have I been? - 12:10 p.m. , 2007-02-19

Holy shit! - 2:24 p.m. , 2006-01-11

Stuffing recipe - 6:17 p.m. , 2005-12-13

Good Life Update - 10:22 a.m. , 2005-11-11