10 April 2007
Deadlines, they are inconvenient but make handy excuses sometimes.
One of the minuses of being a content/technical writer for my department is that I usually have a zillion tiny deadlines every week. I don't mind that, really, as long as they're reasonable. What bugs me is when they're not.
What also bugs me is when someone comes to my desk and says, oh-so-obliviously "mind doing this for me? It should only take you five minutes."
To which I say - depending on the person - either "okay, fine" (because it really will take only five minutes) or "sorry, no can do. I have a deadline for something for xxxxxxxx which is a higher priority than that." I usually invoke the last thing when it's either a) something so frivolous I don't want to waste my time on it; b) something that the said person should be doing themselves and is trying to shuffle off to me for no good reason and I have enough authority/justification for ignoring; or c) something that both the person and I know ding-dang well will take way more than five minutes and I honestly have no time to do it.
Hence my heading that while deadlines can be inconvenient at times, they are also very handy excuses when you don't want to/can't do something for someone and a previous deadline with a higher priority is the only thing they'll accept as a reason for dismissing their precious baby out of hand.
What also bugs me is when someone comes to my desk and says, oh-so-obliviously "mind doing this for me? It should only take you five minutes."
To which I say - depending on the person - either "okay, fine" (because it really will take only five minutes) or "sorry, no can do. I have a deadline for something for xxxxxxxx which is a higher priority than that." I usually invoke the last thing when it's either a) something so frivolous I don't want to waste my time on it; b) something that the said person should be doing themselves and is trying to shuffle off to me for no good reason and I have enough authority/justification for ignoring; or c) something that both the person and I know ding-dang well will take way more than five minutes and I honestly have no time to do it.
Hence my heading that while deadlines can be inconvenient at times, they are also very handy excuses when you don't want to/can't do something for someone and a previous deadline with a higher priority is the only thing they'll accept as a reason for dismissing their precious baby out of hand.
Labels: work
