Let us review...

[rolanni]

If the Nice Clerical Lady has risen to your call of "Emergency!" and pulled not one, not two, but three rabbits out of her pocket before 9 o'clock, but This One Thing is Not Exactly As You Desired It? And the NCL explains why it can't be Exactly As You Desired It? And the explanation includes things like timing (there's a class there until noon; and another class, starting at one; and it takes catering 15 minutes to clean up), and facts (the person who controls this irrevocably refuses to allow your scheme to go forth), and the NCL has gone the extra mile to find another venue that Will Do though it is admittedly not perfect?

Standing in the NCL's office repeating that It Must Be the way you Desired It will not change either (1) the timing or (2) the facts. Or, yanno, the private opinion of the NCL that mountains are being made out of molehills, here.

* * *

In other news, the galleys for The Dragon Variation have landed! That's three novels to be proofread, with a in-our-hands date from the publisher of March 22, which means the correx need to be mailed no later than express on March 19.

*goes looking for a red pen*

Comments

[wolflahti.livejournal.com]

When did blue pencil become red pen?

I know years ago I was a blue-penciler, and now I'm a red-penner - along with just about everyone else. But when did it change, and who told us to?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I stopped worrying with blue pencils when I didn't have to care about my marks being picked up by the press.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

When they switched from "camera-ready copy" to electronic files. The old copy cameras used blue-sensitive film, which meant blue pencil (*special* blue pencil) wouldn't show up on the negative.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I know "blue pencil" as what was used during the War (er, that's WW2) to censor mail (usually places and times, so that if it fell into enemy hands secrets didn't get out). Some of the comedy radio shows had "blue pencil" sketches where they would read out 'censored' mails with perfectly harmless words "blue-pencilled" to make them suggestive. (Later shows used a 'bleep' instead to suggest that someone was censoring "terms not in polite usage" as the OED used to put it.)

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

There is someone who controls the room. There is someone who desires the room. They are the ones who need to be communicating at this point.

[arkessian.livejournal.com]

*DO NOT* argue with the Nice Clerical Lady.
This should be engraved on tablets of stone, the better to smite the ignorant with if they should err...

nice clerical lady

[(Anonymous)]

this leads to the obvious thought that some moron is grossly overpaid to be a moron, and their salary would do much better added on to the NCL s... mmmhmmm
Nanette

Re: nice clerical lady

[elgordo303.livejournal.com]

that's certainly a succinct re-statement of the peter principle...

[shana.livejournal.com]

How do they get through grad school without learning that you DO NOT piss off the Secretary?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Actually, Younger Son learned that *before* grad school. Knowledge that served him well . . .

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Nevermind grad school, how did they live to graduate high school?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

So we should be keeping firearms and explosives away from you for the next little while?

[thejunebug.livejournal.com]

For a minute I thought I was reading a post in library_mofo, haha. Poor girl.

Hooray for galleys!

[drammar.livejournal.com]

In the above circumstance I would make my bow to both the NCL and necessity, and thank my frickin' stars that the NCL found another venue, and shut up.

Even my husband, who is an occasional dolt knows the first commandment: "Thou shalt treat the secretary with kindness and respect, lest s/he visit plagues" upon thee.

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

You need a "smote this idiot NOW!" button placed in some unobtrusive spot on your desk.

I have colleagues like this unfortunately and it is not much easier dealing with them in other situations. When common sense was being handed out, they were elsewhere. I always get done what needs to be done because I never piss off the NCL or NCGs. Basic Skills 101.

[(Anonymous)]

One wonders if I recognize a particular Professor from _Fledgling_....

Adrianne