Oh, no I di'in't!!!

I usually don't discuss work on my blog, but this one is sort of funny horrifying.

I'm a newspaper copy editor. At best, I should prevent errors from getting in the paper. At worst, errors may slip by me. Under no circumstances should I be inserting errors into the paper.



See, the calendar listing is infinitely long, and it takes way too long to read it all every day. Usually, only a small amount is used, so I usually read about 50 inches and then put a whole bunch of paragraph returns to mark where I stopped reading. I assume that if the designer ends up needing more, he or she will tell me and I can read more.

For some odd reason, last Thursday I felt compelled to not only put the paragraph returns, but also a note, in live type, to the designer. It was about a dozen paragraph returns, then a note in all caps, then a dozen more paragraph returns. I thought there would be no way to miss it. But somehow, she didn't see the note and took out all the returns. And there it is, in the paper. Dear God. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.