Thursdays at work and I don’t seem to get along. Two Thursdays ago, the computer didn’t want to cooperate with me. I couldn’t get any of my work done and it was really frustrating because I knew I was going to fall behind on things. I went home early, not because of the computer but because of the weather (I guess that’s not really relevant, is it?).

This past week, I was dealing with one of our desktop publishers and it was causing a whole world of headaches. You see, sometimes we need to have desktop publishers work with files so they’re formatted correctly after we “flow” the translations back into the files. They don’t always flow nicely. The one I was working with quoted the lowest price on the job and thus this one was chosen.

Keep in mind, I’m still learning how to do things at my job. I don’t know best practices for things yet and unless I’ve been told to do something and then how to do it, I wouldn’t know how to get some things done. I make mistakes every day, though less and less as each day goes by.

Thursday was the result of a mistake coupled with me having to deal with the particular desktop publisher. Because I didn’t know that I was supposed to do something, I ended up doing it later than I needed to and it pushed back the desktop publishing. It was already late to the client on Thursday and I was starting to panic but I wasn’t worried too much. There didn’t seem like there was much I could do considering the desktop publisher was located in another country.

Turns out, as my coworkers informed me, I needed to do more.

They’ve dealt with this particular person before and they know how to “handle” them. I should have asked for hourly updates. I should have been more firm on deadlines. I should have this. I should have that. Well, I didn’t. My coworkers, in trying to help me, explained how and why I needed to babysit, as they put it, to get my files on time.

Here’s my problem. I know my title is project manager. I know I need to be managing people. But this desktop publisher manages a team of publishers. They shouldn’t need me to babysit them. Just because they can save us $10 on a job, doesn’t mean they’re worth it. If my time is wasted micromanaging this person, is money actually being saved?

Maybe more of my job will turn out to be like this and these frustrations are moot. Maybe it was just a case of the Thursdays which will become a recurring theme in the sitcom about my life. Maybe not.