Member-only story
Do You Know What ASAP Really Means?
Align your comms with your schedule, people!
How many times have you been asked by your boss to deliver something ASAP, and your first reaction was to drop everything and start working on it right away?
Only to learn later that not only the job wasn’t urgent at all, but also it was delayed, postponed, forgotten or simply cancelled?
Years ago, a Director asked me for a logo saying she needed it ASAP. Let me paint you a quick picture:
- The logo was not for any critical project. Did I know that? No.
- The logo was for her intranet channel. Yeap, I’m serious.
- It was after 5.30 pm.
- Well, she was a Director of something, which meant she was important!
My reaction was to drop everything I was doing and deliver it now. Quickly, I talked with one of my designers and asked him to do it, he looked at me annoyed (it was after 5.30 pm!) and said, “but she said it’s ASAP”, and I was like, “and? It’s ASAP!”.
When I was learning English as a second language (I am Brazilian), ASAP was one of the first things I learned, and I knew it meant “as soon as possible”, but clearly I was missing something.
