You've Got Mail!

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It's just roughly one month since I began my new job as a magazine editor, and it definitely feels good to be back in print media. Since October 2008 (it took me awhile to realize what I'd essentially thrown away), a part of me has ached to return to assigning articles, selecting photography, making deadlines and approving page proofs. I love it all.

Of course, my previous print job was with a newspaper in a much smaller city where you make four right turns and run into everyone you know. (Okay, Tulsa isn't literally that small, but it's pretty close when you run in small circles, like local media.) I never seemed to keep busy for my full eight-hour days until it was deadline week - and then I was easily running 12+ hour days. One reason was the lack of e-mail. I was on every imaginable distribution list and constantly asking to be added to new ones, but in a town of a couple hundred-thousand people...there's only so much news. Esp. when you're a community publication and don't cover the nitty gritty stuff.

Because of this experience, the thing that's surprised me the most about my new job in a city of two million is the amount of e-mail I get on a daily basis. In the first week, my inbox was a flood of constant messages, leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I easily go through 75-100 e-mails per day. It is for this reason I have zero desire to put my BlackBerry to work doing the exact thing I purchased it for in the first place: fielding work e-mails. It would drive me insane.


That said, e-mail has perhaps been one of the most enjoyable parts of this new job, purely for the wide variety of messages I/we receive. And I thought I would share with you some of my favorites:

The Angry E-mails
Day two of editorial training, we were told to always be "super sweet" in our replies to readers - something I agree with 100%. I don't think you do yourself any favors by being a demanding, bitchy editor/reporter. You can always get exactly what you need by working hard and killing 'em with kindness...even if the person is testing your patience.

No sooner had our meeting let out than we sat down to find a ranting e-mail from a woman who doesn't even live in the state, accusing us of missing a fantastic opportunity to put "someone of color" on our cover (the current issue included an article on the president of the local community college who happens to be black) and instead "relegating her to page 52." In the course of the 400-word e-mail, the reader went from accusing us of biased journalism for putting a white football player on the cover to basically pinning decades worth of racism on us, arguing if we had chosen to put the college president it would have been a small step in erasing Texas' racist past.

I wish I were making this up. How can one publication possibly atone for decades worth of history?

To top it off, she suggested we read a "real" publication - a newspaper from Oklahoma City. After two years of working in Oklahoma media, I couldn't help but laugh. Publications in the fourth-soon-to-be-third largest city in the country need to take notes from a niche publication in a city of barely half a million? Hmm...

Messages from the Technologically-challenged
Part of my duties includes acting as social media editor for two of our three magazines. As such, I have the all-reaching power to delete messages you, the well-meaning self-promoting reader, posts on our page. I determine what events get promoted. I even get to remove users from being a fan who post demeaning, disrespectful comments.

It kind of gives you a God complex if you're not careful. Which I am. Careful, that is. Not God.

Apparently my love for social media isn't shared by all, however, as evidenced by the e-mail I received from a sales rep's grandmother. When I asked the sales rep if she knew the person based on same last names, I got back "Oh yeah! That's my grandma. She's a mean old lady."

Fantastic.

Grandma asked me to "Please unsubscribe yourself from my Facebook." As if! Grandma continued on, complaining I was flooding her news feed with too many updates (two a day!) which she didn't need to read because she didn't even live in the area. Could I please delete her because she didn't know how and it was really annoying to get all my updates but none of her other friend's updates.

Problem: I didn't know how to delete her.

I was going to try to explain how to "unlike" something, but instead I learned the joy of deleting fans. And I replied, apologizing for too many updates and offering support if she had any further technological issues with our sites/Facebook.

She didn't reply back.

The Hey, I know you! E-mail
Moving back home, I knew I'd run into various people I grew up with. Some I wouldn't mind catching up with. Others, I would rather avoid all together.

I received an e-mail with school news from a woman whose name I vaguely recognized. I decided it might have been the sister of someone I grew up with but didn't mention it and let her know I posted her news on our website, thanks so much.

And I get back "Remember Girl Scouts?" Identity confirmed.

Oh, that organization I was a member of until your daughter decided Girl Scouting wasn't cool and you and all your little cohorts dropped out, forcing me to find a new troop? Nope. Don't remember it at all.

"I was your leader!"

Greeaaaaaat. Now the thing you need to know about this woman and her daughter is they deeply prized the neighborhood they lived in and somehow thought because their houses were slightly larger and the drove slightly more expensive cars and their children all exclusively wore Limited clothing, they were automatically better than me.

Sadly, not much has changed.

So I proceed to reply to a chain of chit-chat e-mails. I keep it all short because this woman doesn't need to know my life story. When she asks how my parents are, my response is "good." And by good, I really mean "Great! My mother doesn't have to work for a living like you because my dad has a fantastic job in the oil and gas industry where he probably makes three-times the amount you make at your measly little teaching job." And when I ask how my former classmate is, she tells me she lives in the better-than-me neighborhood and works for a wine distribution. And by that she means her daughter lives at home and is a drunk.

Isn't catching up with old friends fun?

Teaching PR Folks to be Friends
My favorite e-mails, however, come from PR folks. And not just any old PR folks. The pushy, bitchy PR folks who think my publication's sole purpose is to endlessly promote their events just because they happen to be in my area and we happen to be community-oriented.

And unfortunately, these e-mails don't stay e-mails. They turn into phone calls. And when these are your first impression of someone and they're essentially berating you and your magazine in so many words...it doesn't really make you anxious to work with them, much less cover their events. (Esp. when they're making it crystal clear their office is disorganized because information is not being distributed the way they intended. How am I supposed to know that so-and-so was not authorized to release that event that is now posted on my website? Not my fault and you should really be going through your own office to sort that out, not mine. But hey, nice to meet you.)

While I sent them at a previous job, I also severely dislike the amount of mass e-mails I get. I don't want to publish the same thing as everyone else. Neither do the five other pubs you've CCed. *sigh* I get that PR is a lot of work, and sure, they do provide some valuable information...but if you really wanted to get into our issue, you'd know we're quarterly, not monthly. You'd know we are family-friendly and don't so single-business features. You'd do your homework.

But I digress. This one is a learning process.


I'm also surprised at the number of nice "We enjoy your magazine" e-mails we receive as well. You very rarely receive those, so it's nice to see one or two pop up during the work week.

But enough about e-mail. There's a reason I don't tether it to my BlackBerry. Sometimes you just need to step away.