I don't do windows weekends.

Proposal submission deadlines are written in stone. If a proposal doesn't arrive at the funding agency on time, it isn't even read.

As a proposal moves through the development and production process, it's quite common for interim milestone deadlines to be blown. That results in a compression of the remaining steps and their completion dates. If there is significant slippage in adherence to the original schedule, editing—which essentially is the final step prior to production—must be done quickly and at the eleventh hour.

Such is the case, again, in my office. Our staff has bitched, among ourselves, about the fact that on many proposal efforts no one that we support has any respect for our processes. Our manager appears to be powerless to resolve this ongoing problem.

So what is one to do in the face of ineffective management? Exercise the power that is available to each of us as individuals.

I sent this email to the appropriate proposal manager yesterday:

From your Proposal Description, it looks like editing will take place over the April 4-5 weekend.

I’m going out of town that weekend (Friday night through Sunday night). So you might need to line up a temp editor.