Bank holiday moan

All bank holidays are nuisance to a freelance. People you want to get hold of aren't available.

The Easter break is a particular irritation to anyone working on weekly magazines. Two of the mags I write for have a cycle of Tuesday to Monday. That is, there are five working days to get the magazine together for press day, which is Monday. Then the cycle begins again the next day.

Easter takes out a Friday and a Monday. So to give staffers a holiday, which managements like to do because it is cheaper, everyone has to work harder. It is hard to cram a five day cycle into three days. So the usual trick is to have two short weeks. So next week, press day is Friday, a four-day week. Then the cycle can begin on Monday 10 April with another four-day production cycle, going to press on Maundy Thursday.

At one level this shouldn't matter much to me. The production editors want the copy early. No problem. It's all well scheduled in advance. All I have to do is switch days. I write on a Monday what I normally do on Tuesday. There is no more work. it just happens on different days.

But the break to the routine is surprisingly disruptive. I feel out of sync all day. The writing is somehow harder. And I dislike my inability to respond easily to a small change. Expect grumpiness for the next couple of weeks.

Les