RFP tenders – don’t you just hate ’em? Above you see the Wieden + Kennedy shopfloor at 4.00am when not a creature should be stirring. But, what’s this? There are still some people toiling at their workstations instead of tucked up at home in bed.

Frere…

..and Ollie.

This is because we’re preparing one of those giant tender documents for a big RFP (request for proposals) for a new business opportunity. These things are brain-freezing monsters that require huge amounts of work to be completed against a nightmare deadline. You need to compile case histories on everything you’ve ever done in the world ever and supply the inside leg measurement of everyone who’s ever worked for the company.

You end up with a book the size of the Bible, but possibly somewhat less profound. And by this time in the morning the quality control may be suffering.

Trying to get people from other offices round the world to help you pull the information together is never easy as they all have work to do creating brilliance for our existing clients. And if you don’t manage to accomplish the allotted labours in the required time, and deliver – as stipulated – your 37 hard copies printed on vellum and bound in pigskin to Megacorp HQ in Ulan Bator by 1.00pm Tuesday then your submission may be considered ineligible.

Crisis point was at around 1.00am when we realised that it wasn’t going to be possible in the time available to get it all the many, many pages made beautiful in Quark by Ollie’s Mac wizardry. We were going to have to keep it in Powerpoint and make the best of it. There was a brief interlude of exhausted weeping but we’re past that now.

There may still be much Powerpoint to go before we sleep.