Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of Today’s Cacher? Well I’m going to try and give you an inside view. After you read this you will be amazed at the fact that we actually publish anything.

First you have to know the team and each of their jobs. Here is a brief summary of what each of us is responsible for:

First we’ll start with me. I’m the Publisher and President. My main job is to keep everyone focused and moving forward. I’m also responsible for selling the ads, doing data entry for new members, mailing out T-shirts, paying the bills, and answering about 50 emails a day. Most of the time you can find me banging my head on my desk and mumbling a lot.

My right hand man, err, woman is Celena, aka Team Rowdy, my Managing Editor. Her job is to assign articles and ideas to the editors, and put it all up on the Web site. She also doubles as the PR person to promote the magazine. She spends the majority of her time begging and pleading with the rest of the team to submit articles on time.

Next on the list is Sean, aka Geoworms. Sean is little known outside of our little circle, but is the foundation of the magazine and Web site. He puts up the Web site and designs the magazine. Without him we would all see the message “404 Error: Web site not found.” He is also a VP and co-owner of the magazine. He is one of the team members that work closely with me on business decisions. Being a doctor in real life he prescribes me sedatives, like Coors Light.

Then there is the other doctor, Dean, aka Doc-Dean. Doc does our health articles. He offers expert advice from the care and treatment of tick bites to sunburns. He is the other VP of the company and helps make business decisions. He’s always happy and smiles a lot. I don’t know what drug he takes to make him that way, but he won’t give me any.

Speaking of drugs, we have Chris, aka Criminal. Criminal is probably the best known of the staff. His antics are legendary and cause me to bang my head harder. He shows up for the weekly meetings every couple of months. I can’t get him to understand Eastern Standard Time.

April, aka aprilbapryll, is our Copy Editor. It’s her job to make sure we all speak and spell properly. She cringes every time I submit an article. If I wasn’t the boss, she would fire me.

The rest of the staff consists of Brian, aka briansnat, Kylee, aka pipanella, Jamie, aka NFA, Torry, aka torry and Daniel, aka amishhacker. I’m not about to say anything bad about them since they are the work horses behind the magazine.

Now that you know all of us, I’ll give you a run down on our typical month. We hold voice conferences every Tuesday night at 8pm EST (pay attention to this, Chris) on Yahoo! Messenger. The first week of the month we are kinda laid back congratulating each other on the issue that just published and goofing with one another. The second week we discuss ideas for articles and decide who is going to do what. The third week we discuss where we are at on the previous assignments. It’s the fourth week that gets interesting.

A typical conversation during the fourth week generally goes like this:

Me: Hey everyone! (a bunch of “heys” come back.) Celena where are we at this month?

Celena: Well I’ve finally gotten most of the articles. I’ve sent what I’ve gotten to April for editing.

Me: Are we going to publish on time?

Celena: Well I’m going to work all night putting it up.

Kylee: I don’t have voice tonight. (We have never heard her voice.)

April: I just got the articles to edit.

Me: Where is Chris?

Sean: We have some problems with the Web site that I’m working on.

Dean: We need to sell more magazines.

Jamie: I agree.

Me: Why are we so late with the articles? (Insert long silence here.)

Me: Well?

Then there comes a barrage of excuses of how everyone has been so busy, including me.

Me: We have to publish in two days!

Celena: We’ll make it.

Everyone then promises to get their articles in the next day.

April starts banging her head in time with mine.

And by some miracle we manage to get the magazine published on time! (Well, most of the time.)

Authors note: I poke fun at the above mentioned people in good humor. Everyone on this team has a full-time job and they all volunteer their time to make the magazine happen. Their dedication and hard work is what makes all of this possible. We don’t have a perfect system, but we do have fun!