Apologies for my earlier outburst. I had just come out of a frustrating meeting. The recent corporate restructuring has resulted in what must seem, to management, like a good idea: streamline the production departments, amalgamating the magazine, directory and newsletter production teams, causing a few redundancies. I can see the logic in this, but:

magazine production staff are highly-trained, highly-strung beasts. We do not want to do the DTP on some crappy, mono, 500-page directory.

although we admittedly have huge holes in our schedules, we also work to pressured deadlines. Don't choose one of my hectic periods to give me shitty work.

magazines work as teams: the editor and production editor need to make decisions together. They don't want an administrator with no mag experience sticking his nose in.

anyone who has worked on a mag knows not to try tell the ad sales department their job. You will make enemies.