By Eric on 2006-06-02

Strengths and Weaknesses. Giant Robot, the issue 42 is hitting the stands soon! We got our advance copies, and we hope you like it. My strength is writing a simple sentence like this. It says what it needs to without too much flair. It’s fairly to the point, although I’m trying to tell people at the same time, “don’t expect your subscription copies today, because these are the Fed Ex copies we got overnight.” If I tried to get too fancy with my words, I end up even confusing myself. Basically, I’m trying to explain that I’m better at some things than others, and I think that’s how we all are.

Utilizing strengths is something that a publisher has to be able to do. It’s a tough one, since in the end, if you’re a multitasking, economizing, tenacious motherfucker then that means you’re pushing your bandwidth past T1 speed. Gladly I’m not that nutty, am I? But if you are, can you expect people to keep up? No way, so don’t think about it. Some people have different goals, they work for different reasons, including because they have to and not because they want to. Work is a tough thing, and a lot wait until 5pm hits, so they can run out and begin their real day. There’s something good to be said about that too.

One mistake is expecting everyone to be like how you want them to be. That’s ridiculous, and I’ve been guilty of that like the next person. One part of my job these days is to try and work with people’s strengths and keep them somewhat free of their weaknesses. I think it makes people happy. I’m not 100% sure if this is a publishing tip, but in the end, it’s just a suggestion for how to get something done with the best quality and in the best amount of time.

Now let’s translate this to basketball. The Pistons are a well balanced team. It’s all about teamwork, which is ideal since everyone works with their strengths efficiently. It’s a neat thing to see even if they get beat by the Heat. Each person does their thing, and there’s no superstars. Whereas, the Lakers, “my team” has a guy who can score 81, but lost to a better balanced team, The Suns. I suppose and believe that the law of averages and longevity will be on your side if you’re steady with a solid teamwork based team. Ideally you can be part of something like this too.

Even though I talk about teamwork, I hope The Heat win.

Now, the sad part. Once all the fun parts get distributed and only the crappy parts are left, guess what? The publisher has to fill in at that point and figure it out. Before this turns into a downer, enjoy GR42!