Working 9 to 5

This week I began work at Cambridge University Press as a production editor. I should mention right now that this post won't be very interesting, so feel free to go and eat biscuits or watch paint dry or take a bath. I won't be offended.

The thing is, people keep asking me what my job is. Until sometime during Tuesday, I didn't know but now I've figured it out! So this is what my job is:

The books I work on are academic and professional books - more specifically, science, technical and medical academic and professional books. Luckily I don't have to read them, because they all have names like 'Sleep Disorders' and 'Divided Brains' and 'Conservation' (those are the simple ones - I can't remember the long ones but there are some doozies) and they're full to bursting with graphs and figures and mathematical illustrations and references and they're written by people with unpronounceable names. Because the humanities and social sciences team sometimes get overloaded, I also have one title called The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism and to my great chagrin, this one seems to be more trouble than all the others. I want Humanities to treat me well, as it is my heartland. However, I don't intend to read a word of that book either so maybe it's only fair that it's giving me grief.

This is what happens.

The editorial team upstairs work with authors who have written wonderful, brainy books. They get the books in ship-shape order and ready to be published. Then, they send us the manuscript and illustrations and graphs and things and tell us to get cracking and get the book published.

On a Monday, my manager divides up the new books between the crowd of (seven) production editors. As the new person who can't write a two paragraph email without asking questions, I will be given the easy books that are short and have minimal illustrations.

Then, I go through my manuscript and make sure I have absolutely everything I need. (NB the manuscript will be a word document, not an actual manuscript because that's just how we roll in the digital age.) I find myself a friendly freelance copy editor and book them in for the job. I also send the manuscript to a typesetter, who makes the file all nice and also tells us how many pages the finished book will be.

When the typesetter sends the book back, I send it to my friendly copy-editor to go through with a fine tooth comb. Then, the book is sent BACK to the typesetter to turn into proper files that you could use to make a book. It is then proof-read by a proof-reader and the author, who I have booked in advance (and apparently this can go along the lines of: "Author, your files will be coming to you on (Insert Date)." "I shall be in Abu Dhabi until (Insert Ridiculous Date)." ". . . Um could you cast your eye over the book though? On account of when it's published it will earn you some money." (Back and forth which results in me delaying the schedule and author not being as late as they would like to be so either everyone loses or everyone wins.)) Then the book comes back all ready to be fixed by the typesetter again, and everyone in the office takes a good long look at it, then more changes are made and then (God willing) it's ready to go to press.

In the meantime, the cover could be absolutely anywhere, but it's my job to make sure it's not absolutely anywhere, it's in my covers tray and everybody in the world has seen it and added their 2 cents worth and it's been fixed.

And then it's sent to the printer.

Essentially my job is to manage the schedule, manage the budget, let everyone know what's going on, liaise with the author and the editors and the typesetters and the cover designers and the proofreader and sometimes contributors and the editorial team upstairs. And if I do it right, the book comes in on time, on budget and everyone likes it, even if they thought that they hated it when they first saw it.

The good thing is, the people are absolutely lovely. This includes the authors who, despite being not always able to get things done on time because they are simply busy and marvellous professors and doctors who have lives and jobs and babies, are very kind to me as well. The colleagues are wonderful. I ask them 100 questions per minute of the day, and they come over and sit behind me and point to the obvious thing I should do, or have done wrong, and pretend that I am of average intelligence. They also say nice things about Australia and tell me where I should go on my holidays and don't mind when I have a simply foul and disgusting cold and I bring my germs into the office because it is my first week of work and rather than stay home and rest I have to come into the office and cough disgusting germs and blow my nose and most likely get the 8 months pregnant lady horrifically ill and induce early labour or something. And they invited my to go coppicing with them! How delightfully English (in the 'this is what we think England should be like' sense, rather than the 'this is what England is actually like' sense). We get 7 hours a year to do charity work on work time and get paid for it and my team is going coppicing as a team building exercise.

FYI: Coppicing is a pruning technique where a tree or shrub is cut to ground level, resulting in regeneration of new stems from the base. It sounds like hilariously hard work that you presumably do in boots and a waterproof in the middle of November.

There is also, somewhere among the many buildings and 800-900 people onsite at Cambridge University Press, a knitting club. Interesting.

If you have stuck with me until now, felicitations. You are wonderful. Your sacrifice of love is rewarded with my e-gratitude, and here are three kisses just for you:

xxx