BACK IN THE EARLY 1990S, I took a temporary sabbatical from writing to venture into the world of circulation. (Translation: I needed to pay the bills, so I got a job.)
I was half of the circ department at a small publishing company that produced two magazines and a stable of related books. It was, to say the least, an interesting place to work.
This was back in the dark ages, when magazines didn’t routinely have Web sites or access to e-mail. My office didn’t even have a fax machine, because the elderly matriarch of the company couldn’t see why such a thing was necessary when the U.S. Postal Service was still in operation.
But we managed to get things done, and handled orders and customer service complaints and inquiries as efficiently as we could, given our limited resources. That’s why to this day I’m sympathetic to publishers when I have problems with my own magazine subscriptions. Goodness only knows what kind of conditions my circulation sisters and brothers are toiling in.
Still, readers want their magazines in a timely fashion. And since we’re in the enlightened time of the Internet
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