Freakin mad!

The title's not good enough to describe how absolutely freakin mad I am. I'm so mad I can't even think of the next sentence to type!! I mean the sentence before this one took me almost a minute to come out of my fried brains.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo MAD.!!!

Alright, sure our office were attacked with virus that eats up all the jpg files in our server last week. But it was cleared up quickly. Plus I did all the screen captures after all that were done.

For the past three days those jpg files that I captured went missing a day after I did the recapture. If it is the virus then it should not be random files that are missing - the virus would have eaten all of it.

Plus, when I used the IrfanView software, I immediately "save as" it in the current folder - I happened to forgot to change the storage destination so it all went to our previous issue's folder instead of the current on we were working on. When I found out I copied the jpg files and saved them into the current folder.

So when they all went missing for the first time, I went back to the previous folder and cut those jpgs that I copied the other day (which I did not delete) and repaste them into the current folder.

Then they went missing for the second time - this time not all but one jpg file was left for each slug (article). You see I usually name the graphic files that I captured to accompany a certain article with the same name so that the sub-editor and creative dudes can find them easily, for example if the slug was named "rat.doc" then the jpg files would be named "rat1.jpg", "rat2.jpg" and so on.

Systematic, no? Well, systematic enough for other people to take advantage by deleting what they thought was oversupplying of graphics! It's not that I really want to have lots of graphics per article - but the nature of the article that calls for it. So if it is needed, it is supplied - I know I'm using the space in our servers appropriately!

Anyway, I had to re-do the screen capturing again, and boy did it took me a long time to finish cause by noon our connection is a bit slow.

Then they went missing for the third time. Again, not all files were missing, but one was left for each corresponding slug. So again I re-do the screen capturing, but this time since I did it in the morning it was quite tolerable.

Today they went missing yet again!!! And the pattern stays - one jpg was left for each slug!!! And when I checked back the one that gets to stay are graphics of products from our advertisers or leading brand or simply the coolest looking gadget among the bunch of products that I earlier captured.

It was clear that it was not the virus that's eating them jpgs. It was someone who knows what our publishing style is about.

I suspect it is one of them dirtybag/kissass sub-editors - they are the ones who does the layout of articles on each page we print, and they modify the edited articles to fit the page (but they say that process is actually about modifying our language usage, as if the writers and editors aren't good enough in English!)

These dirtybag/kissass sub-eds know that it is our publication's style to have one photo/graphic to accompany article (in order not to make it too boring, and in order to prove that our publication did send a representative to cover certain event - it's a we-were-there kind of thing).

These dirtybag/kissass sub-eds also know that if we have the opportunity, we should give priority to products sold by our advertisers (it's a publication's way to butter up those companies so that they will continue to advertise with us, since we've shown our support and given them the extra exposure). Hence that's why all the jpgs that were left to accompany my articles were associated with our advertisers.

I feel like shouting at someone!

After I discovered "the missing again" this morning, I quickly stood up from my chair and grunted loud enough for someone to ask what's up? (It was one of the Assistant Editorial Managers who asked me what's with the grunt?)

I told her what happened. She referred to the virus situation, but I told her about the pattern on the missing-all-but-one-jpg-for-one-slug thing and she too agreed that it is a person who's doing it.

So I paced around the office, walked barefoot in fact, to cool myself down. In my moment of temporary insanity I thought should my feet touch the coolness of the cement it would seep into my body and dissipate the heat of my boiling blood.

So maybe at that time I forgot the office is fully carpeted.

Anyway I talked to our dedicated sub-editor, whom I know would be freakin mad as well cause she needs those jpgs as well, and asked loudly (hoping that the other dirtybag/kissass sub-editors would hear) who could be deleting my files? She told me she'll check with the iSD people and see if those jpgs can be retrieved.

I'm waiting right now - if the files were retrieved, it will confirmed my suspicion that it is actually a person who's deleting my jpgs, not a virus. If the person who deleted them is already using our new system, I can even request to find out who it is.

Once I found out who, I'll be sure to confront the person and tell him or her not to mess around with the current files. I'll tell the person that my time has been wasted these past few days and the person will have to pay for it somehow.