Deadlines

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." — Parkinson's Law

I doubt that most people plan to run every single project right up to the point where it smashes into its deadline...but around my office, it sure looks that way. Of course, the management team assures us at every step along the way that they're "ahead of schedule" and "have this thing under control". But then at the very end, there's always a frenzied panic as they make a thousand last-minute changes.

It reminds me of my college days whenever I had a paper due. (Please don't tell my son this -- I keep trying to explain the evils of procrastination to him; it would be a shame if he learned that I ever waited until the last minute to do something. Thanks.) Most of my buddies would leave their assignments until the night before and then would stay up late to finish them. My problem was that my "morning person" brain would be useless to me late at night, even if I did chug a 12-pack of Jolt cola before I sat down to study. So what I did was set my alarm for 3am on the morning it was due, and get up early to write the paper right before I had to go to class.

Believe me, you can get pretty good at writing summary statements when you look up and realize that you have just barely enough time to get to the classroom. You just have to go with whatever you've got up to that point.

When you read your paper again a couple of weeks later and realize that it's mostly incoherent, you can't help but ask "What was I thinkin'?"

And here we are decades, er, I mean years later, and I run into the same sorts of challenges in my office. The difference is that I'm no longer the sole source of input to the literary product, and in fact, am the last contributor in the process. So the amount of time I work on finalizing a document doesn't depend on when I set my alarm, but on when the other folks finally let go of it and turn it over to me.

Our system incorporates a milestone known as "pens down". This means that on a particular designated day, all of the proposal authors are to be finished writing and/or changing anything. In fact, they are supposed to be physically removed from the premises at this point, and restricted from touching the documents at all. The theory is that their banishment from the process at that point allows time for Publications (my group) to thoroughly edit the material, format it correctly, and ensure that all the submittal requirements are met in plenty of time to deliver it to the customer before the deadline.

Yeah, right.

Inevitably, though, the "pens down" cutoff point simply launches a new round of revisions, rewrites, and retooling. Usually it's because some manager who was "too busy" before finally takes the time to review the document, and decides to change the word "obtain" to "procure" and "prompt" to "timely". Most of these last-minute changes do nothing whatsoever to improve the product; they're simply serving to placate the ego of someone who wants to feel like he's a contributor. And of course, the unpublicized consequence of this 11th-hour twiddling is that the professional editing and formatting review gets skipped because there's no time left. The result is almost always an uglier product than they had before they tried to "improve" it.

What's my point, you ask? Well, I guess it's just that I get frustrated when I have to work late because somebody else didn't honor their schedule commitments. Yeah, I know, I'm whining, and it's quite obnoxious. So I'll shut up about it.

Anyway, after being up later than usual for the last several days, I'm really looking forward to getting some rest. Perhaps then I can write about more cheerful and entertaining subjects. Until then, try to beat one of your deadlines on something (especially if you're a college kid whose tuition I'm paying), and have a great day!