Ready in the wrong order

I had the run-up wrong for years.

February, to me, was a brief. The idea, the film, the key visual, the greeting, four weeks of posts approved in advance so that nobody would be writing copy at midnight in the second week.

That is not what separates the businesses that come through the month well.

What separates them is the rota. Who is working at eleven at night for four weeks, and who covers that person when they are ill. Whether the delivery slots were rebuilt around a day that now starts in the evening rather than the morning. Whether the staff travel and leave requests were settled in January, or whether they are about to arrive one at a time. Whether the list of people who might come was gathered before the month, or will be rented during it. Whether anyone has agreed who is allowed to answer a complaint at one in the morning without asking permission.

The post is a Tuesday afternoon of work. The rota is three weeks of negotiation with people who have plans.

Every year I watch the order get reversed. The creative is finished and framed, and the rota becomes a group message on the second night, written by whoever is most tired. The operators who do it the other way round look under-prepared right up until the first evening, and then they are the only ones still answering.

The month is expected to begin tomorrow or the day after, depending on the sighting. Everyone is ready. The post was the last thing that needed doing, and it is the first thing that got done.