definition of 'unprofessional'

2009-06-17T02:54:41Z

A little over a month ago I worked on the Australian Writer's Diary 2010, as part of my Practical Placement requirements. Around 20 hours of research and fact-checking, then about 15 hours' wrestling with the stupid InDesign document to input the factual changes into a template that was, well, broken. Finally I packed the whole thing up - properly versioned, signposted and checked - and handed it over to the small press people to give to the proofreaders. Having done that, I emailed the small press co-ordinator to ask for the go-ahead to get the cover design finished.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Last week I contacted one of the proofreaders. He hadn't been given the manuscript. Hm, I thought, maybe there's a problem. So I emailed said small press.

And I waited.

And I waited.

This morning, one of the other students in my Editing class mentioned to me that the small press co-ordinator 'wanted to know where things were at' with the Diary. Apparently she received a 'blank CD' from me.

Now, note - this was never communicated to me. She's had it for more than four weeks, plenty of time to look at it, find any problems and drop me an email. I have been on campus and in email contact for all but 4 days, most of which were over a long weekend. It's not like it would have been hard to find me and fix this up quickly.

But nooooo ... I find out over a month later. Through a third party. Who isn't working on the Diary, and cannot engage with me on fixing the problem. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that the small press co-ordinator's computer is notoriously dodgy when it comes to reading CDs. Apparently this isn't the first time someone's been accused of sending blank media - and I did check it before I handed it over.

So here I've been, waiting for any kind of feedback, trying to get some sort of communication happening - and now this. It's completely unprofessional. I'll be requesting a face-to-face appointment with the co-ordinator - always assuming I can get an answer to yet another email! - and I will be making it very clear that I don't appreciate my commitment to this project being undermined by shoddy work practices.

Practical Placement is supposed to teach us what working in the industry is like. If this is an example, it's no bloody wonder our publishing industry is in chaos.

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definition of 'unprofessional'