What's taking so long?

He hobbles around the office with a left-legged limp. An old curling injury he boasts, but like that’s anything to be proud of.
It’s a hectic day at the office. The minutes are ticking away and deadline is getting closer and closer.
He creeps by the cubicles, gazing at the work being done by everyone else. He circles the editorial department before heading back to his lonely office. There’s still a lot of work to be done and very little time.
I check the clock. It’s 11:45.
The sports pages are done and deadline is only 15 minutes away. The paper needs to be upstairs, shot, plated and sent to the press.
The wounded man comes out of his office again. He has a calm look upon his face.
Time has come, but only four of the 12 pages are upstairs on the production manager’s work station. Sports and Lifestyles are ready to go, but not the news, classified or native page.
Thirty minutes overdue, limpy comes back out and dishes out pages to be completed.
One and two head to one guy. Three, ten and 11 go to the deputy editor. Four and five remain with curling-mishap man.
I sit back in my corner cubicle and watch the chaos. I smile crosses my lips. There’s nothing better than watching others panic.
Curses are flying around the office. Derogatory rumblings are spoken in a silent whisper.
Finally pages come off the printer waiting to be proofed.
I jump into action, but really why do I proofread. I suck at spelling and grammar. Whatever, I do it anyway. I’m a team player. I give it 110 per cent and as long as we win it doesn’t matter about individual efforts.
Production Manager harasses us. The pressure is on. Pages four and five are the last to make their way upstairs.
Three hours later the paper gets done. It’s pushed back the whole operation. The press room is waiting around grumbling. They should have had the paper printed by now. They should be heading home after a long 10-hour day.
We’ll do this all again on Tuesday. Hopefully it’ll be done on time.

The News-Optimist is under the guidance of a new editor. As of last week, the new guy has been in charge.
The former editor has stepped back into a reporter position, which has made for an awkward newsroom.
It’s weird working beside your former boss. Something doesn’t seem right. Most people would rather quite than take a step back.
The new guy didn’t seem to have the drive to meet the deadline, which doesn’t really work in the newspaper industry.
I will say he didn’t get much training. He was thrown in.
The former editor doesn’t want anything to do with training. It’s a troublesome situation.
It might be a strange couple of weeks until the new guy get comfortable and the awkwardness ends, if it every does.

Good news about the job. I received a five per cent raise. I was shocked. I heard nobody gets raises here.
But let’s figure out how much that is. I do little math and come up with $45 a paycheck minus Saskatchewan’s huge taxes it works out to about $25. Now I wonder what I’m going to do with all this extra cash.
It’ll probably end up paying for more beer, so I’m happy once again.
I’m off the bars are open and it’s time for an afternoon dose.

One more note: I hate the song My Lumps by the black eyed peas. I don’t like the song because it makes me think of Joel prancing around campus blaring the song out of his retro boombox. I think he even has the same purple shorts as Fergie wears in the video. I shake my head and wonder why Joel doesn’t like good music.