I'm stunned...

...by other people's idiocy.

Not always, mind you. But just when you think they can't surprise you, some folks just have to let you know how dimwitted they really are.

Refer to the earlier post today about the small client that has started making big demands, demands not commensurate with the small sum they pay me.

I just received another email from them, this one with a list of "guidelines" and a form I must fill out. The form must be submitted each month before I send them an article, and must be mailed -- not emailed.

You wouldn't believe the so-called guidelines. They are eerily similar to those I received before I did my first assignment for my first high-school journalism class. In some ways, they are even more dumbed-down.

This adds expense -- not to mention irritation -- to every damn job I do for them in future. Beyond the cost of postage, paper, envelopes and ink in my printer, it will consume time, the most expensive commodity of all.

I'll have to call the publisher tomorrow morning, as it's too late to do so today.

A good thing to have overnight to let my temper subside and work on displaying a calm demeanor. Right now I would simply tell him to take his new editor and her new guidlines and do something painful and embarrassing with them.

Forget the rest of my day. Nothing good that could or should have happened did.

Isn't anything ever going to go right again?