Lovely Girl   +  musings on writing

Learning to Delegate

I had every intention of blogging about my first official day as a full time freelancer, but, well, I didn't have time. See, I was so determined to line up enough work for these first few weeks that now I am swimming in work. But this is a good thing, because it means I'm not twiddling my thumbs wondering what I was thinking. I'll leave you with a quick anecdote from the weekend...

Editor A from last week agreed to pay for a photographer (she would not want my photos in the magazine, trust me). I put the word out amongst my friends and coworkers that I needed a last minute photographer. They came through and I lined up a photo shoot for Saturday afternoon. We really only needed one or two shots of one particular cocktail, but of course, the cocktail has dots of herb oil floating on the top, making it almost impossible to shift the martini glass without ruining the effect.

The shoot takes two hours (and two drinks). The photographer tells me he'll burn them onto a CD, which I have to pick up the next day. It would have taken about two hours roundtrip for me, but I was willing to do it so I could get it done and move on with my life. Fortunately my boyfriend lives nearby and agrees to pick them up after his thirty-hour hospital shift (yes, I'm a lucky girl).

Sunday evening at 10pm, I go to email the photos to my editor and discover that they are too large to email (even individually). I download two different Zip programs, and it turns out that photos do not zip, because they are not vectors. Of course. I try to upload to Flickr, but again, the files are too large. I'm in the living room panicking, wondering if it's too late to find a 24-hour FedEx location so I can overnight the CD. My roommate has PhotoShop, so she reduces the file size (but not the resolution, of course) and emails the photos back to me. Crisis averted.