Ask any designer, and they'll tell you that deadlines are the bane of their existence.
It's very difficult to be creative on a schedule. You get used to it, of course, but you never really like it. Except when you've been killing yourself for three weeks and the deadline is the only thing that can put you out of your misery. Tomorrow is D-Day and, as much as I am dreading it from a creative standpoint, I am positively elated on every other level. To be able to sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night is a luxury that I have all but forgotten. Last night I didn't sleep at all, but instead took a nap for an hour-and-a-half. Tonight will be the same, I'm sure.
This is a bad thing, because lack of sleep and mental exhaustion is making me a bit cranky.
Today I very nearly killed somebody.
As I was pulling into my apartment complex, some bitch was obstructing the driveway because she was trying to read her mail, smoke a cigarette, and drink a Diet Pepsi all at the same time. This kind of multi-tasking was clearly beyond her mental abilities, so she didn't have the sense to get the f#@% out of the way. Instead, she just wandered aimlessly down the middle of the road, blocking me out. EVEN AFTER SHE TURNED AND NOTICED ME WAITING THERE!
And the entire time, all I could think of was how easy it would be to run the stupid bitch down and grind her into the pavement. The part of my brain that would usually be horrified by the thought of such a thing was sleeping, and so it seemed like the perfectly logical thing to do. So there I was ready to kill this dumbass bitch, when I blacked out...
... and then suddenly I was in my parking space.
For a moment, I was terrified that I actually did run her down, but then I looked back and saw her stupid ass still wandering in a daze, and was only partially relieved (apparently THAT part of my brain was asleep as well).
It was then that I sat in my car and thought about how much I love Star Trek.
The ORIGINAL Star Trek. The REAL Star Trek...
Until today, I always thought that my favorite Star Trek character was Spock. I mean, I loved them all, but Mr. Spock was my favorite. Then, all of a sudden, I realize that my REAL favorite character is Scotty, and always had been.
Mr. Scott was always so brilliant under the pressure of ridiculous deadlines. The Captain would get everybody in a big mess, and then scream down at Scotty to do something fast or else the shit was going to hit the fan. Scotty would then say it was going to take an hour to fix whatever was wrong. The Captain then went ape-shit and told Mr. Scott that he had 15 minutes or everybody dies.
And Scotty would somehow pull it off. Every time.
Then we find out that Scotty would always multiply his time estimates by a factor of four so that everybody would think of him as a miracle worker. This, as I have just now realized, was positively brilliant.
I've been doing it wrong all this time.
You can learn a lot by watching Star Trek.
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Hey, hey… take it easy there. Get a brew, the clicker, sink into your recliner, and put the tip jar out. Heh.
Which proves that – while an engineering genius – Scotty was a lying bastard. Every time he said, “I’ma givin’ her all she’s got, Cap’n” he was lying. He always pulled off these miracle saves, like you said. Obviously there was more to be given every time Scotty said “I’ma givin’ her all she’s got.” I think Kirk’s demands were always interfering with Scotty’s prostitution and gambling rings.
Good luck! Only a few more hours to go…
I canna change the laws of physics!
You’re right: All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek. Scotty was awesome.
My Dave is a graphic designer so I know first-hand of the hours that you keep. It’s amazing how you’re running on empty at this point, yet not one spelling error. Truly amazing.
Aye, I love Scotty. Then again, it’s Star Trek. I love them all…
star trek was definitely the IT thing to watch when i was growing up.
you can have scotty, my favorite is still spock.
hope you get some real sleep soon.
What always gets me through deadline crunches is focusing on the fat paycheck and all the toys it’ll buy. That, and frequent crying jags.
“computer, compute to the last digit the value of pi”~ Spock
Ah Star Trek… All solutions are in Star Trek… The evolution is in the development of telepathy. I repeat what say Spock to Kipring (in French, sorry) : “Tu fais partie de moi tout en ne le faisant pas. Depuis longtemps, nous nous connaissons sans nous connaître…”
Now I can say to you :
Courage, Dave… Bonne chance et dis-toi qu’il te reste quelques heures de travail…
I’ve been racking my brains for the last 2 (maybe 3) minutes trying to remember the original star trek…. and I’m having difficulties, I keep thinking of data and worf (or however it’s spelt). I guess I’m too young for the original?? But that seems wrong too as I can picture the characters, but not any episode?
Ah well….
I never realized it until now, but I subscribe to the Scotty Deadlines Program as well. I tell people that web pages they need me to set up willl take any number of days longer than it actually will. When I call them up well ahead of schedule and ask them to proof it before I link it, I look like a hero. Nay… a God. WebGod!!!!
It’s fun.
I always felt Star Trek was way ahead of its time with the answers to our future… world peace, universal health care, environmental harmony, global economic stability and NO TRANSPORTATION PROBLEMS!
The President ought to have a Star Trek advisor on staff.
Eep! My shirt came today! Glory be! *runs off to go put it on and parade around the streets of Edinburgh*
I can’t get away from any Star Trek references around here as hubby has committed every episode to memory. I was working on a project for my design class and when I showed it to him he said it was already in an episode of Star Trek…so I inquired if anyone else would have made that connection but him… I see I might have been wrong *g*
The love of Star Trek was passed to me from my father. My personal fave was McCoy. Great job, he just stands around being pissy all day. But Scotty rocks, too, and since I started working again, I have definitely been using his time honored techniques of client management.
I learned that you can have sexual relations with many an alien and not get one single STD or one of them pregnant. Good to know.
I firmly believe that the length of time it takes to complete a task expands or contracts to fit the amount of time given to finish said task.
That’s my way of saying that I procrastinate.
Didn’t we learn Scotty’s multiplication trick in a TNG episode? It seems like that one was one during the 4-day illness I had a short while back.
I totally agree. Scott was the bomb and he could beam you up. Nobody else could do that.
I’m taking away your butter. You are a little stressed.
But, I’ll give you some of those killer crackers you talked about. You can throw them like ninja stars at stupid people, ok?
Writers have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. We only really get work done under the shadow of one…but we hate them cause they force us to work outside our comfort-zones. Gotta love external forces. LOL
I never realized that you were a Kohainanim. A member of the priestly class. Very impressive.
I hope your toil and trouble had finally ended and you can sleep the sleep of the dead for a couple of days.
I love Galaxy Quest. Star Trek, not so much.
I however can relate to almost running down the idiots on foot who think they own the road. I live at the end of a dead end street (yeah, no symbolism there) and there are consistently people walking down the middle of it when I’m trying to get home. My evil dream is to one day scatter poison ivy down the center of the road, thus taking care of the issue. I’ll never actually do it, but a girls gotta have a dream, right?
I’m glad the lady wasn’t wearing a bluetooth headset. sheesh, I bet if she were, you would have had a davetoon for that.
Take the following:
– rude inconsiderate lady
– reading mail
– smoking cigarette
– drinking diet pepsi (not coke/lime)
– bluetooth headset
– letting her kids go all ber-wonkers in the street
– using air quotes when she said “excuse me” to you
– Dave w/Bad Monkey behind the wheel of the Microsoft DeLorean
Oh man, I can see it now…..
Ha ha ha… apologize?? Yeah, like THAT would ever happen.
Anybody so self-absorbed that they can’t move their ass out of the way and let you pass is about 20 levels below the ability to apologize. Heck, I doubt they understand the very CONCEPT of apologizing. 🙁
A buddy of mine taught me many years ago how to do a good estimate…
1) do the actual estimate
2) double it, to account for the time you will spend surfing the ‘net
3) multiply the result by pi, just in case
He says it works every time…
Scotty is such an amateur.