It’s that magical time of year in New England when the leaves turn red and gold and a brisk autumn wind carries the promise of pumpkin spice and apple cider donuts. The orchards and hay rides are teeming with happy kids and everyone’s crock pot is primed for chili and football. It’s also the time of year I want to whip up a batch of murder cookies and send them to my entire Sales team.
Like Halloween and the 4th of July, our year-end falls on the same day every year. It doesn’t keep you guessing like Easter or Passover or require a math calculation as to which Thursday you can binge on turkey and stuffing. Our year-end is the same damn day every year.
Despite the fact that the date never changes, and the week after that follows is the launch of the sell sheets for the next year, the Sales team never plans ahead. As a result, each year-end plays out like a backwoods slasher film in which I emerge bedraggled and wild-eyed during the end credits in the metaphorical equivalent of a blood-stained tank top. Oh, and I’m usually missing an arm (and all of my dignity). And because everyone loves a poorly scripted, derivative sequel, I go back into the woods with the crazy wielding chainsaw maniac because it’s now the launch of sell sheets season.
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When I first took over the Sales team, I survived my first year-end on Airheads (the candy, not the Sales team) and sheer determination. It was a rough 36 hours of wakefulness and for the life of me, I still can’t figure out what the mystery flavor of Airheads is, only that it smells of citrus and tastes like broken dreams.
In my second year, I tried to get ahead of year-end. I set up meetings with my Sales team the month before, gently advising them to make decisions about lingering negotiations, unfinished contract,s and skeleton drafts of sell sheets. For the most part, the team praised me for thinking ahead and then proceeded to ignore all of my emails and meeting invites. Year-end arrived and nothing was done and there I was, eating chunky peanut butter straight from the jar and hexing the entire Sales department with a curse that would have made Sam Raimi’s evil dead sit up and applaud.
Eventually, I got smart and decided to invest equal parts into preparation and self-care. Since I already knew how preparation was going to go, I polled my squad and settled on the 5 Ds of self-care. Now, repeat after me: Drink. Duck. Dodge. Disappear. Dish.
DRINK. Stay properly hydrated. Year-end isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. Proper hydration is a must. I recommend white wine to stay awake, and full bodied red to help you get down. But it doesn’t need to be alcoholic — anything with caffeine or inadvisable amounts of sugar will do. In fact, my old Biglaw mentor (the Man Bunny of a former ATL column) used to consume mass quantities of Pedialyte when he was in the throes of a deal. I love my electrolytes rebalanced and replenished as much as the next attorney, but Pedialyte does come with the problem of its weird watered down taste and its unmistakable pediatrician office stink. Use with caution. It’s not for everyone. And whatever you do, do not spill that stuff on your desk.
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DUCK. Now is not the time to be a hero. If you have stuff on your plate that’s unrelated to year-end or sell sheets, shift it into low gear, make your apologies to the business partners (or duck them), and do not take on new work. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is forgiving yourself for doing it. There will be plenty of time for you to stand up and save the company. Right now, you just have to get your hot mess of a Sales team to the finish line. Believe me, you already deserve a freaking medal for that alone.
DODGE. As in, dodge the blows you know are coming. Sales people are just as frantic as you are, and they are looking for any opportunity to get their heads above water. Don’t stand there and take it. Get out of the way. Put it back on the business to do their work, so you can do yours. Yes, that’s right. A while ago, I got over some of my misgivings about forms and I created an idiot-proof sell sheet. That’s right. Best two hours of my life putting that sucker together. I review the form every year (two months before year-end, thanks) and send the updated form to the entire Sales team with instructions. The idiot-proof kind. So when I inevitably get that email with a bunch of nonsensical bullet points from a business partner who couldn’t be bothered to use the form, I dodge and throw it back on them to fill out the form and all the required information before I agree to review it. That’s the game. Them’s the rules.
DISAPPEAR. Get away from your desk (particularly if you’ve spilled Pedialyte on it). An easy way to avoid the urge to throttle your Sales people with your bare hands is to disappear. I find that holing up in a seldom-used conference room, the cafeteria during non-meal times, or even a coffee shop laying down smooth emo beats does wonders for your ability to concentrate. Why? Because it cuts down on the amount of people asking you irritating non-essential questions that can be answered anytime and don’t matter right now because it’s year-end. Their feelings will matter again. After sell season. The point is, make yourself unavailable so you can make yourself available for the stuff that actually matters. You can’t do this in your office. Your closed office door with you behind it? Might as well as be a bullseye.
DISH. To hell with the idea that discretion is the better part of valor. Call your squad and compare notes on who did you wrong or the sheer amount of work that stands between you and the door. Why? Because someone will be having a year-end that’s worse than yours (perhaps the kick off of an audit or an ongoing SEC investigation). Not only can you support your squad mate, but you can thank your lucky stars your year-end isn’t that bad.
Do my five Ds sound obvious? Duh, that’s because they are. But who among us isn’t guilty of total self-neglect during crunch times like year-end? Simple things like getting up to use the bathroom or stretching your legs or stopping to grab lunch go right out the window along with personal hygiene and work-life integration goals. And we all know what happens when we self-neglect. We go too fast in the interest of getting it done and we miss something.
Or else we bake a bunch of murder cookies and send them to our business people.
Kay Thrace (not her real name) is a harried in-house counsel at a well-known company that everyone loves to hate. When not scuffing dirt on the sacrosanct line between business and the law, Kay enjoys pub trivia domination and eradicating incorrect usage of the Oxford comma. You can contact her by email at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @KayThrace.