I’ve always resonated with the quote by Rita Mae Brown, “If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.” Working under pressure of a deadline works for many, and has for me for decades. However, I also hear my dad’s words echoing in my head, saying, “Don’t wait until the last minute to do things, Holly. You won’t be able to do as good of a job. It won’t be your best work if you have to do it in a hurry.” So, most of my life I’ve had an inner struggle between the two philosophies. And, to my dad’s point, I do wonder if anything is ever really done to perfection when it’s done at the last minute and in a hurry.
It was easy, back when I was in school, to follow the first precept. I could squeak out a report for English or history class at the very last minute under pressure and get an A, so I learned a very bad habit early on: procrastinate, do a rush job under pressure, and get rewarded! But now that I am older, I have found I do not enjoy that sort of stress and have moved toward my dad’s way of thinking. The unfortunate thing is that now that I work at this job with our business, it has thrust me into dealing with many people who still operate on the first precept, forcing me to as well. Thankfully, it isn’t everyone, and I am eternally grateful for our punctual clients.
Having the leisurely time to go over the articles submitted to me for editing twice—once while loading them into our layout program, and again the next day on paper while drinking my morning coffee—allows me to be thorough and really catch everything that needs to be addressed from an editorial standpoint. When some of our advertisers/writers send things in well after our deadlines, and sometimes as late as our layout day, I am robbed of this two-step, thorough process. And the writer is robbed of the extra time and care in the proofing process to truly make sure nothing is missed or omitted on proofs sent to them for review. If we are all rushing at the last minute, things get missed, or at the very least are just not as good as they could have been, had it all been done within our deadline dates. It creates a frenzy of stress for all involved, which is why we have deadlines to begin with, but we also try to accommodate everyone, so it’s such a fine line.
As an illustration of all this, and really the prompting for this column, there was an omission in last month’s cover story on Preservation Tree Care. Their article came in with no website or phone number in the content, and due to all of our layout day and press day duties, that detail got missed by us as well. Under normal circumstances (within deadline), those details would not have been missed by us, but we are still unhappy they were. So, even though most people find business contact info online these days, here is their info: www.PreservationTreeCare.net, 303.761.1088, and see their ad in this issue on page 34. Preservation does “all things trees” fantastically, and we love them!
