Curse of the Deadline

Some people hate it, others love it. What deadlines do to different kinds of people

Inside your friendly Dominos pizza outlet, it is quiet and Kelvinator cool even on a bustling, humid afternoon. Why would loyal customers flock inside when they can get a free home delivery in 30 minutes flat? If the pizza arrives late, it’s even better. You get Rs 300 off.

In the afternoon, work is slow. The pizza delivery army gets time to stand around, and answer questions. “We are trained to multi-task and time ourselves,” one says, “Our hands work like hands of a clock.” When a pizza boy picks up a potential customer’s call, he doesn’t even wait for the voice on the other end before rattling off specials and promotions. Within a minute, he has the order down. Within a minute or two, he’s expected to assemble the pizza, keep it in the oven for six minutes, spend not more than 15 seconds cutting it, and one minute to take it out of the store. This gives him a comfortable margin of 20 to 22 minutes to deliver anywhere within a radius of three km, on his two-wheeler.

And what happens if the pizza is late? “If it’s late, it’s due to a failure in the system, like road block, or breakdown of machinery. So it’s not our fault.” But what if it is their fault? A sudden silence takes over the room. The army dissolves, and a manager emerges to say that the staff is not allowed to divulge information. The horrors of a late delivery are a tight-lipped secret.

The world outside Dominos is not very different. Life is a swift progression here too. And distance divided by speed is time. Time is everything. And the fast win. “Time management is realistic. Deadlines aren’t,” says Deepthy Menon, a TV journalist. In just eight years, Deepthy went from being a rookie with Aaj Tak to Bureau Chief of Times Now. At the peak of her career, she has taken a decision that has shocked her colleagues. She has decided to take a year off to study International Relations. “Deadlines make you take sabbaticals,” she says.

Television journalism is a cruel 24-hour job with six-hour deadlines. In six hours, a story is put together. In six hours, a story goes stale. Since TV ratings fluctuate daily, each day is a battle for survival. If your main story isn’t ready to go on air by primetime, you are a failure. But failure, like success is also shortlived. You have another chance. Another deadline.

A deadline is an emotional rollercoaster. It is a sinking feeling in your stomach. It is visceral, an acidic burning in your throat. It is an addiction. It is the reason you get disturbed sleep and why your back aches all the time.

In a profession that has brought Deepthy face to face with corpses being stitched into gunny bags after the tsunami, train compartments and bodies ripped apart by blasts, the unrealistic pace of six-hour deadlines has kept her going. For the three hours she would spend commuting to work each day, she would read a book to avoid thoughts that would get her down.

TV journalism compensates for taking away the personal lives of its reporters with money. But it is notional wealth. “We all call ourselves losers in conversations among ourselves,” she says, “Ever since I joined work, I haven’t taken a qualitative break, I haven’t sharpened my skills. I’ve spent the best years of my life on six-hour schedules.” Deepthy Menon doesn’t fear being late or missing deadlines anymore. Her fear is not ending up doing all that she wants to do.

In the advertising world, the cardinal deadline is that an ad film must be ready seven days before going on air. For Shamin Desai, who’s worked as an ad film producer for 14 years, the function of a deadline is to shorten the process. But an impossible deadline is the product of terrible miscalculations and lack of foresight. Of the 650 commercials he has produced, only three were shot with breathing space. The rest were made under extreme stress.

“We lack foresight and planning, it’s a cultural mindset,” he says, “Look at our town planning, our weddings, it’s all so chaotic.” Creativity, contrary to what people may think, is far from chaotic. It is a structured process. A screenplay for example has three acts. Humour, Shamin says, is more structured than even drama. In the face of tight deadlines, one is forced to become mechanical. There is no time for experimentation and innovations. As a successful ad film producer, it’s become second nature for him to pre-empt these problems and work around them.

But deadlines are highly beneficial too. Jehangir Madon, a database engineer, says that there are two ways of ensuring work is done. One is setting effective deadlines, and the other is draconian monitoring. He prefers the former. In his firm, the US-based Navteq Corporate, the management regularly sets deadlines based on past statistics of time taken by a team to achieve similar work. Whether it’s a comfortable time frame or a difficult one depends not only on one’s expertise but also on the quality of pressure from the top to get the job done.

“Even with deadlines you often need someone to tell you to move on when you are wasting disproportionate time on something.” Madon says that deadlines give people focus. And even honest workers sometimes need focus.

Ravi Singh, Editor-in-chief of Penguin India, finds that more writers take submission deadlines seriously now than, say, a decade ago. In that sense, they’ve become more focused and professional. In another sense, though, they are more impatient. The desire to be a published author before 25 is greater than the desire to write a book true to one’s vision. Some people are in the business of ensuring that others meet their deadlines. They see, very closely, the haste of a city. And the longer they witness this, the more pointless it seems to them.

Route number 9 is a bus in Mumbai that goes from Colaba Bus Depot to Wadala and back. It passes through what some denizens of this overworked city call the ‘danger zone’, the terrifyingly crowded areas of Crawford market, Mohammed Ali Road and Bhendi Bazaar. The driver of the bus has a simple philosophy. “Don’t take tension. Don’t give tension. Just pay attention.” He doesn’t wear a watch, as the traffic decides how long the route will take. The bus halts at 52 stops, takes 56 turns and goes over 12 speed breakers one way.

Both the driver and conductor believe that the safety of commuters is their first priority. While very few people embark and disembark at stops, scores do so at the traffic signals. “They are not in a hurry. They just don’t care about their own life,” says the conductor. But he must. The secret to completing a bus route successfully is to stay focused, look out for the passengers and try not to overtake other vehicles.

While a bus is always running five to 15 minutes late, the conductor of route No 9, who has been working on the same route for 15 years, hasn’t ever even been five minutes late to work. He has official records to prove it. And he works his routine out with precision. Each day, the conductor takes two hours to commute 13 km from his home to his work place. He keeps half an hour aside to leave his home. In case the bus gets stuck in traffic, he takes a taxi or train. While he may be punctual, his bus never is. But that doesn’t get him down.

He knows that reaching on time is just one aspect of his job. It’s not the only thing. “Our priority is the safety of passengers.”

(This story was filed 52 hours after the deadline passed) 

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