Do Your Job

Last week one of our editors reached out to me. A member of a different department had made a request, and she wasn’t comfortable fulfilling it.

As a rule, our staff tries to be flexible and accommodating. If the advertising department wants to reserve specific pages (advertisers prefer that their ads appear on the right-hand pages of the magazine), the content people will do their best to provide them. If the production department needs to switch the print deadlines due to a secular holiday, the editors will scramble to meet them. If the editorial department wants to run a special project requiring extra pages and resources, our administration will try to tweak the budget. We’re all on the same team, after all.

But this time, the editor felt that the request would compromise the integrity of her work. “So tell her you can’t do it,” I said.

The editor sent a firm but polite email. The other staff member pushed back.