A Signal and a Sign

After working Monday and Tuesday until midnight and Wednesday until 9 pm, editing and copyfitting on layouts I only received Friday at 6 pm, I arrived at work this morning to find a question from the top editor about almost every other word on my pages.

Her complaints, among other things, were that the book reviews sounded too much like book reviews. She asked such detailed questions about exercises you'd think our readers were learning to be personal trainers – or that she was. She wanted to know why I mentioned beach volleyball in a caption on sun hats. She didn't understand half of the music apps descriptions and wondered why we were running this story in July in the first place. (Um, she approved the lineup as my section's contribution to our July summer music issue -- that is the peg.)

I am not exaggerating for any effect, comic or otherwise.

Tears of anger and frustration welled up in my eyes. I spent a few minutes breathing quietly. I looked at the file again to see if I'd misjudged; if maybe it really wasn't that bad.

It was. It was worse.

I ran to the bathroom and properly burst into tears. I sent a few text messages, then marched myself back to my desk and began slowly working. I tried to concentrate on one little bit at a time and not get overwhelmed with how much had to be done. I tried not to think about the fact that it had already gone through one level of editing and I'd had to make changes and make those changes fit. I tried not to yell and scream that there's only so much useful information one can pack into a five-word caption about a summer hat, for heaven's sake.

I tried not to think that I'd get to repeat this whole process again on the next round of proofs, when the same people would ask different questions, some of it based on information they'd insisted I should delete this time around. I tried not to think about the approximately 27 other things I also needed to be doing so as not to get further behind.

I tried not to let tears well up in my eyes. I failed miserably at that.

I marched out, somewhat defiantly, to a vinyasa yoga class at lunchtime. I couldn't stop crying. I didn't want to go back there. I thought about the fact that even if I walked back in to quit I'd still have to finish this part of the job, and the trouble with this type of job is that you can't half do it or it just gets sent back to you to redo. (In my defense, the editor between me and the top editor – who is widely acknowledged to be the smartest person at the magazine – made only a few changes to my section before shipping it upstairs. And I can't decide what it means that the top editor herself, not prone to gratuitous compliments, thought my section was great. Oh, except for about 10 million little details.)

I struggled to quiet my mind during yoga – to focus on each instruction and bit of advice the teacher gave. I couldn't.

But I did find a small bit of peace. For weeks I have been terrified of making the decision to leave. I've questioned myself and second-guessed myself endlessly.

No more. I am leaving.