A cautionary tale of the perils and pitfalls of proposal deadline day

On the wall of my former manager’s office hung a testament to how, despite the best of intentions, a large proposal involving dozens of people and countless hours of effort can easily come down to a frantic, last-minute tear through the streets of Ottawa and Gatineau.

This testament was a photocopy of a bid receipt – the document that is issued to confirm a proposal has been received by deadline. The time stamp was 2 p.m., which, incidentally, had been the cut off time. The proposal had been delivered and accepted, literally, at the last minute.

Upon the photocopy my manager had written “Never Again.”

Which begs the question – How had it come to this?

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