3.14.03 – bad karma

each week the boise weekly features a painting or photograph on the cover, which local artists submit by the dozens. the pay ain’t bad: $150 plus the exposure of being on the cover of a newspaper with a 35,000-copy weekly circulation. we get far more art that we could ever publish, and it stacks up in the editor-in-chief’s office. yesterday he sorted it into Yes, No and Maybe piles. he handed me the No pile, so i could call the artists and tell them to come pick up their work. being the chicken that i am, i timed my calls to land at 11am on a friday, when most people were likely to be at work, and managed to leave 19 messages and only have to reject one artist over the phone directly. i felt kinda like a chump, encouraging people to continue to submit their work in the future, even the ones who turned in crayola masterpieces on cocktail napkins, but it was the nicest way to let people down. so that’s what i did today. i ruined other people’s days. it wasn’t my fault, but it still seems like a recipe for bad karma. my resume will line production managers’ wastebaskets all across the country when i’m looking for my next gig.