It may have been a non-stop party on AP, but that didn't stop the occasional staff member from being totally useless.
The reasons varied. Perhaps someone had been placed on the mag for the convenience of the company (much as you'd do with any other mag when, say, the original mag had to lose people for financial reasons, or closed down altogether - but this was AP, dammit), perhaps someone was using AP as a stepping-stone (much as you'd do with any other mag when, for example, you didn't care who you worked for as long as it was a promotion - but this was AP, dammit), perhaps someone had been hired to make up the numbers (much as you'd do with any other mag when, for instance, the workload demanded another warm body - but this was AP, dammit) or perhaps someone just turned out to be totally useless, but whatever, you'd be hard-pressed to find a point in AP's history when at least one office denizen wasn't letting the side down.
However, only we were allowed to weep over someone's total uselessness. Besides, they were likely lovely people and our friends. On at least two different occasions, we lobbied to reverse publisher decisions to fire totally useless staff members, and many an evening hour was put in changing totally useless work so it was at least presentable.
Because no matter what, once you joined AP, you were part of the magazine.
We protected our own.*