A quarter of a century ago I was given an unreasonable deadline, advanced by a week: the finished product had to be ready by close of business on Friday. I arrived at FCT&D at six o'clock Thursday morning and worked through COB the following day, just short of thirty-six hours. At that point I'd been on the payroll for fourteen years, and my provisional "art director" gig was nearing the expiry of its notional charter (it was of course renewed and eventually formalized), so there was a certain incentive. Also, I was not yet thirty-nine.

This afternoon I was handed a spreadsheet* with a couple of hundred names and brief narratives, and told to turn these into handsome "certificates of recognition" (sorry about the Christmas bonus, munchkins, but look of these handsome certificates laser-printed on faux-parchment!), and to have these ready by the end of the week. Nahguhhap'n. I don't do day-and-a-half shifts anymore. It is well that the middle manager to whom I now report is afraid of me (I keep her off balance by alternately playing the irascible codger and the frail, slightly senescent cardiac case). They're going to miss my services when I'm gone—there are things I do that no one else in the organization has a clue about—but I'm doing my best to ease the transition for them, so that the sense of loss will be to an extent ameliorated by one of relief.

cordially,

*Is there a way to import an Excel document into InDesign, mailmerge style? Possibly. If so, I suspect it involves scripting, and I'm not prepared to undertake this. And I grow tired of being handed the equivalents of scrawls on a cocktail napkin as the point of departure for my work.