The Bloody Doors Off

Yeah. I’m afraid if I blink, it’s gonna get less real.

I had an interview today. Doing layout for a weekly newspaper. Mom and pop company. Part-time, two days a week. The initial interview went so well. I was on point, open and positive. They liked what I had to offer, so they asked me to sit down and do a mock page layout for them. See the goods.

I’m thinking, ‘awesome, I’ve got this’. I go to load InDesign. Then I’m told, no, the files in PageMaker.

Well, crap. I haven’t worked in PageMaker in ages. It’s the precursor to InDesign, so I know some stuff, but really.

And one thing they told me earlier, they haven’t set up a template. You’d think there would be a template. It is something they said they want to build in the near future. Given you’d want the styles and colours, column layout, etc., it’d be a HUGE help. But I found an older file and was able to delete the old stuff and tweak.

Here’s where I say just how much I hate PageMaker. You can’t keep style et al tabs open. Aligning is a bitch. There’s only a couple of ‘undoes’ you can use if there’s a mistake. I end up losing most of the text (I have no idea why) and have to reimport it and then the layout doesn’t fit the same. I can’t properly scale the adverts within the bounding boxes.

I’m at this for an hour, and I’m sucking wind. At this point, I know I’m not getting the job. I have to admit to the owner/EIC that if it was InDesign I’d have had it done within 20 minutes, but I don’t have the skill for PageMaker.

And then he says: “So do it in InDesign; I want to see what you can do.”

I didn’t crack my knuckles, because that’d be egotistic. But the thought was there.

I import the page into InDesign. It brings in the styles, the columns. Everything. Just like it should. And it takes me 20 minutes, like I said. I own this bitch. By this time it’s after 5pm (I’ve been there since 3pm), and they wanted to see what I could do with modifying a client ad spec but there’s no time. We shake hands. I’m thinking, maybe. If the other guy on Monday crashes and burns. I’m not trying to put all my self-worth into this.

Half an hour ago I got an email, asking if I could come in Tuesday afternoon to talk with their senior layout editor. Ask questions, figure out some of the tricks he uses.

This dog can still hunt.

Now watch this video. I closed my eyes and I was back in New Orleans. It’s that good.