Field notes, the last week

Every last week of the month has the same notes, and I have never seen one of them written down.

The working day ends at two. Whatever is not decided by two is not decided today.

The afternoon goes silent. No replies, no calls, three hours that sound like a Friday.

The group chat wakes at ten at night and runs until one, moving faster than any meeting held in the same building in February.

Approvals arrive as one word. Yes. Fine. Go. No comments in the document, no view on the third line, no request for a second option.

The Eid post is being rewritten at midnight by the most junior person on the team, because they are awake, because they are the only one in the file, and because the version approved a month ago was written for a different night.

Half the calendar is grey. That leave was booked in January by people who have done this week before.

Nobody will touch the media plan. It was signed in December and this is not the week to reopen anything.

Somebody asks whether the greeting goes out on the last night or the first morning. The honest answer is that the sighting has not happened, so the file needs two versions and will get one.

None of this is anybody's failure. It happens in every building I have sat in, and it is legible a fortnight ahead to anyone who cares to count back.

The plan this week is running on was written for an ordinary week. Five working days, an afternoon, a decision cycle of three days, a designer with the file open at four. This week has none of those, and it has never had them in any year I have counted.