Around 3:30, the real estate team asked me to join them in the conference room. Sitting in was the director of real estate. Their request: a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation for Monday afternoon. Monday afternoon when he knows full well we have a senior management meeting that generally ends between 1:00 and 2:00.

No time. Poor planning. Oh, last minute apparently doesn't matter because I have the weekend to work!

Argh! Why is it so incredibly wrong to believe that working at the last minute is exactly what you should NOT be doing? Why are people satisfied with the chaos, the lesser product, mistakes?

I worked for over five hours into this evening just to get it to a place where we could go over it on Monday afternoon. I worked all the time when the people who had requested the presentation were off with their friends and families. I worked because to punish them by saying I just couldn't get it done is to punish the company...but that ends up punishing me. A poor choice all around, I say.

I don't leave work to the last minute. I do plan ahead. I even plan for having to drop my work to deal with the things that keep getting dumped on me. I hate having to be so reactionary and having so little time to be strategic...to get on to the work of communications.