I'm quite new to theis Project AMangement lark on such a grand scale as this World Atlas, and its quite a challenge.

Basically I get map data in from the publisher which has been merged from three or four sources, which I then pass onto a company in India who style it, layer it and tidy it according to a design and methodology that I worked out around Easter time. It's done in India because they charge £3.50p an hour(!!!) and I charge £25.
The Indians then send the map back and we edit the file against a World Atlas, check it for layering and style etc, clean it up a bit and send lovely proofs and a report back to the client.

Easy peasy.

But the data is very slow coming from the publisher so we have fallen behind schedule.
The Indians can literally only do what they are told and have less than no initiative when they encounter problems (busy areas, how to fit big names in little spaces etc) and now htey are faced with data coming in that is impossible to work with.
It is far below the standard of the sample pages we sent them and the publisher is getting a bit crap at looking over what they send me.
So i am spending an hour or so on each page (of which there are 102) checking it before it goes to Indian (not part of the process in the first place) and have had to send half a dozen files back.

What complicates it all is that the Publisher doesn't know that I'm involved at all as I am subcontracting the whole thing from LJ who do absolutely nothing other than receive the proofs from me and post them on in their own branded packages.
So i can't talk direct to the client when there are problems with the input mapping. That query has to go via LJ and the whole process is delayed.

but its Friday - and I only have five pages here to work on. Three MOnday and then Ian's backinto to do soem more editorial work.
Today is a Good Day.
I paid D and I a dividend that amounts to THREE MONTHS wages this afternoon!!!
Hurrah

The long term plan is to increase the salaries to a more realistic level from January, but we have to be sure the company can sustain that long term.
At the moment its fine with this job and a couple of other higher paying jobs in-house, but after November it could quieten down again and I don't want to have to go back to a lower wage bill.
But according to the forecasts and analyses we've just done, it looks very manageable.
That's quite a scary thought.

By the end of this year the business loan I took out 5 years ago will be paid off (£150 per month) and the CCBill is now down below £5K for the first time. That's where ALL my salary goes after the mortgage, so once that comes down as well we have more surplus cash each mnth without a pay rise.
Excellent prospect.
Reminded yesterday too of how small and cheap our mortgage is, so for a few years at least I look forward to an upturn in fortune next year.