On the up: Beautiful photographs
On the down: Negligent photographers

Remember this? The hassle of product loans and photo shoots? Just as I had thought it was all over, it all came back to slap me in the face. After all the faffing about of:

faxing companies
chasing them for loan approval letters
doing the loan
arranging the products into separate bags (to be shot differently for different features)
sending it to the photographers in bloody Kepong
picking it back up from the photographers
repacking all the items into their original carrier bags
and returning all the items to the stores
(in the process, fucking up my legs and knees even more so I have to spend even more money at the chiro)

I find out today that a bunch of stuff
had
not
been
photographed.

And we need photos of those items for the next 4 issues for a regular feature we always run.

Next week.

*flip out*

I rang up the photographers and threw as much of a fit as I could in my shitty Cantonese, which of course doesn't sound bitchy and threatening at all but comes out sounding totally stupid. Everyone in that small office (who speak Cantonese totally fluently) tried very hard to keep a straight face behind my back.

Maybe they had taken the photos but forgot to burn them onto the disc for us?

No, they couldn't find the photos. I was flipping out, editor was flipping out (though very calmly because she is always calm), the nice-nice soft-spoken photographer who I was flipping out to on the phone was also flipping out.

No photos.

So I have to do the whole process all over again. I calculated that it'll take me 5 to 6 hours to get this round of stuff done - all for only about 10 items to be photographed by someone who should have done them in the first place.

10 photographed items for 4 issues. That's less than 3 items an issue.

And since I'm not writing anything earthshattering, readers will only look at these damn items for about 5 minutes, if I'm lucky. What a waste of a nice 5 hours for something which should already have been done.

Then I thought I should have checked the disc the minute they handed it to me. I didn't because they're usually perfect and get it all right. Damn them. Damn me. I got very depressed and agitated at myself and wanted to cry. I kept sending crying emoticons to my editor who was sitting two tables away.

Yen Tyng, the advertising manager, came through the door so I told her my whole new drama. "Oh my god! I must tell you what happened to me today...!"

She listened to me wailing away, flipping out, ranting and raving and then said, "Err..... have some fried stuff! The oil will make you feel better" and pointed at the big bag of keropok she'd bought back.

Arg.