Last week, I arrived in New York on Thursday evening, after a grueling flight.  (They ran out of warmed cashew nuts in Business Class, and my footrest was slightly tilted to the left.  Inexcusable.)  I had received several increasingly desperate voicemails from the project leader asking if anyone from the team could be available that evening to assist in the production of the presentation for the next week.  I decided to be nice and call in to the office to see if they still needed help.  My expectation was that I was calling at the perfect time - late enough that they would be basically done, but early enough that I would still get the brownie points for calling in.

9:00 pm - Call to office

 Unfortunately, I must have underestimated the time needed to run off a few copies of a presentation, because they asked me to come in.  Hell.  Well, it can't take that long.  I might miss my evening swim in the hotel pool, but I'll still get some rest and perhaps have time for a nice cup of tea while I dry my hair.

9:15 pm - Cab arrives at office

 As I arrive, I find a colleague struggling with a large box at the curb.  Naturally, I help her into the building.  As we stand in the elevator waiting for it to decide to move, I ask why she's hauling around what must be several reams of paper in a big cardboard box at 9 o'clock at night.  Her response:  "This is the introduction."  Why I didn't immediately pull the emergency stop on the elevator and climb to safety is beyond me.  Probably too stunned to react.  The doors open, and we haul the box into the SDG offices.  Having been greeted (with rather too much enthusiasm), I am committed.  Apparently in more ways than one.  (You know, it would be WAY more gratifying if my fellow workers would greet me that way all the time, instead of just when they need someone to do grunt work.  How much do you suppose I would have to pay my officemate to yell "ML!" when I got into work?)

 After the hubub of welcoming is over, I notice several things:
1)  It is roughly 110 degrees in the office.  (It's New York in summer, and the air conditioning in this building is turned off promptly at 5pm.  Despite 10 fans of various sizes trained directly on the conference table where everyone is working, it's still incredibly sauna-like.  Windy, but sauna-like.)
2)  There are 8 people looking really stressed standing around a conference table.  Their expressions range from "I'm screwed" to "Ah, fresh meat".
3)  On the whiteboard, there is a list of 16 sections of the presentation, with space for two check marks (main body, appendix) next to each item.  One is checked off.
4)  Somewhere, a radio is playing a Violent Femmes song.

 The project leader, looking hunted, hands me several folders containing the masters for 2 sections of the presentation (body and appendix), and sends me to the nearest Kinko's to make copies.  I ask Kimberley where to go (as I don't usually track my position in Midtown by Kinko's).  I am told that the nearest Kinko's is only 2 blocks away, but that we were already told that they couldn't handle a job of this size, so we should go to the one 8 blocks away.  Oh, and did you bring a book?

 What do you mean, "of this size"?

9:30 pm - Leave for Kinko's

 George and I walk up to Kinko's in the hot summer night.  (No singing, now.)  We each bear folders of presentation bits and a set of instructions.  The instructions look like this:
"- Make 30 copies, white paper, 3-hole punched
- Do not staple
- Separate each copy with colored paper or other divider
- Due to confidentiality concerns, wait for the copies to be made."

 I'm not sure why exactly we had to stay at Kinko's to watch the Kinko's staff make the copies.  Yes, the materials were very confidential, but I find it hard to believe that the late-night staff at a copy center makes extra cash through corporate espionage.  This would require that they:
a) read the materials that they run through the copier
b) recognize that the materials are confidential
c) know enough about them to recognize the company/industry involved
d) can identify a competitor
e) contact said competitor and sell the information that they gained.
I'm thinking that this ranks right up there with Madonna being elevated to sainthood on the likelihood scale.  But hey, what do I know?

 While we walk up to Kinko's, George tells me that he's been trying to meet a friend all night, and has finally arranged to meet her at Kinko's so they can talk for a while.  It seems obvious that he is planning to sit there, watching bored people stare at copy machines, while he chats with his friend.  I send him off to a bar or something and tell him to have fun - surely only one of us is sufficient to foil the plans of the wily copy center employees.

 While I'm waiting, Adrian comes in with a set of folders.  He has lots of work to do and is very stressed.  (It's 90 degrees out and he's still in a suit and tie.)  I send him back to the office to work and tell him I'll get his copies for him.  (Are we noticing a pattern yet??  Yes, I am a sucker.)

 A little while later, Konstantin comes in.  He hands his folders to the now rather pissed Kinko's worker, and we chat for a bit.  25 minutes later, his copies are done and he leaves for the office.

 ?!?!?

 Apparently, the Kinko's people figured out that we were all together (really??  no kidding...)  and they just put Konstantin's pile of folders on top of the huge ML/George/Adrian pile, so they were done first.  Sigh.

 George returns about 11pm, just before the copies are done.  I pay the $530 copy bill and we take our 7,000 pages (in three huge boxes) off to the curb to find a cab.

11:15 pm - Leave Kinko's, return to office

 I don't know if you've ever tried to hail a cab in midtown while balancing huge boxes of copies, but I assure you that it should be an event in the Extreme Games.  Points should be given for time to hail cab (obviously); survival of copies; number of adjustments aided by knees, car bumpers, trees, fire hydrants, large dogs, etc...; and creative swearing.  You would be disqualified if the box hits the ground.  We scored rather well in this round, allowing me to move on the bonus round where the boxes are heavier and the point values are doubled.

11:30 pm - Arrive at office

 As we enter the office with our extremely heavy, somewhat structural boxes, we notice several things:
1)  It is now closer to 120 degrees in the office.
2)  There are only 6 really stressed people left.
3)  There are still 5 unchecked rows on the whiteboard.
4)  The radio is now playing Squeeze.

 Aside from the incredible taste in music, this is not looking good.  Just to add to the fun, there are now 4 or 5 huge boxes of copies lying on the floor, 60 partially-filled binders on the conference table, 10 fans blowing spare paper around in a monsoon-like fashion, lots of sheets of colored paper (former copy dividers) lying in piles on every conceivable surface, and 5-hour-old chinese food scenting the furnace-like air.  I'm pretty sure that this violated the Geneva Convention.

 We decide to assist in the binder-stuffing procedure.  I make the obvious assumption that since we were not asked to return to Kinko's, and since several people are missing who were once there, there is a small group of people camped out in some other Kinko's finishing the copying.  With light hearts and heavy sweat glands, we commence the binding.

12:30 am - All copies are successfully stuffed in binders

 With a sigh of victory, we place the final copies in the binders.  Somewhere, Sheryl Crow wants to have fun.  Can't blame her.  As I bask in the glow of victory (not to mention another kind of glowing), the project leader comes in to ask for volunteers to go to Kinko's.  Figuring that she's looking for reinforcements to send in after the original crew (who have no doubt fallen asleep on the sofa while waiting for copies), I volunteer.  So does Kimberley (the one with the heavy box at the beginning of our tale).  There is a brief flurry to determine who has the earliest meeting in the morning.  "Who has a meeting before 9?"  We all raise our hands.  "8:30?"  All of us.  "8:00?"  All but two.  "Oh."

 We send Kimberley to Kinko's with 3 of the remaining 5 sections, and I am asked to wait a little longer while the final 2 sections are completed.  Somewhere God laughs.

12:45 am - ML leaves for Kinko's.  Again.

 This time in a cab, I head to Kinko's.  I would be gratified by the insistance that I take a cab, if it weren't for the sneaking suspicion that they are more worried about the master copies of the presentation than they are about my personal safety.  (I'm assuming that if I were mugged leaving the cab, I should give up my purse and my watch, but ask the probably-drugged-out mugger to spare my folders.)

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(Slight aside here - the movies on American this month are "Beautician and the Beast" and "Vegas Vacation".  I'm not sure which is worse - the fact that I'm subjected to this crap every week, or the fact that I've now seen "Beautician" 5 times.  And actually listened to it twice.  But when "Jerry Maguire" was scheduled, they decided to quit showing it due to customer complaints about content. ??)
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 The Kinko's people have gone way beyond pissed at this point.  The people who work the late shift at Kinko's are not exactly the cream of the crop, you know?  Add to that the fact that their usual routine of listening to the radio and holding toner body-painting contests has been continually interrupted by *customers* and they are decidedly peeved.  What's more, we aren't even self-serve customers, or those people who hang out at the top-of-the-line Mac Quadras trying to print from Word 4.  No, we want them to do something.  And not just by 7am (in which case they could leave it for the next shift), but *now*.  And we wait for them to finish, so they can't even insert random copies of obscene body parts into our presentation.  Was this really what they bargained for when they took this job, I ask you?

 So here I am, 1 am, Manhattan, by myself, arguing with a huge guy in dreadlocks that I really do need the copies *now*, not tomorrow, not later tonight, but *now*.  I keep wondering if this is how all those anonymous bodies wind up in the East River (just three short blocks away, for your felonious convenience).

1:30 am - Copies are done, I head back to the office

 $240 dollars and a serious backache later, I am ready to go back to the office.  (If looks from Kinko's workers could kill, I would be an interesting case study in the forensics hall of fame by now.)  Bearing my very heavy box, I make my way to the curb to hail a cab.  My score in the cab-hailing event is much lower this time, and I am disqualified from the final round.  (Darn)

 I arrive at the office to notice several things:
1)  It is at least 130 degrees
2)  Only 4 very sweaty people remain
3)  With the arrival of my box, all the rows are checked off on the whiteboard (!)
4)  The radio is playing Alanis Morrisette.

 So things are looking up on at least 2 dimensions.

 We finish stuffing paper into the binders, we collect the reams of hot-pink paper that have been flying about the conference room, we throw away the chinese food (which was about ready to crawl into the trash can of its own accord), and we prepare to leave.

 "Wait!!"

 Apparently the binders have to be sent out by FedEx first thing in the morning,and must be packed up and addressed tonight.

 Of course.

2:15 am - We begin to pack the completed binders into various boxes

 The one thing that we seem to have gained over the night is a superfluity of Kinko's boxes, in various degrees of structural integrity.  We put this asset to good use, feverishly packing sets of binders into boxes, slapping on address labels, and stacking the finished product in the hall.  Is this the right number to go to Connecticut?  Who cares!  Just pack!

 My job is to create the sets of binders and hand them to the others to pack.  I reach for an appendix to go with the presentation binder I'm holding and discover a terrible, terrible thing.  I have 3 appendices left and only 1 presentation.

 Shit.

 Somewhere, two presentation binders have illicitly joined, abandoning their appendix mates.  (Of course, considering that 10% of binders are of alternate orientation, I don't know why this surprised me.)  I call a halt to the packing procedure and begin the search for the offending presentations.

 It's funny how people who were once your friends can turn on you with the slightest misfortune, isn't it?

 After opening all the boxes, the two presentations are found - one had assumed the cover of an appendix, thus fooling me into condoning the union.  (It was very stylish as an appendix, though, and I found myself wanting to have a binding ring just like it.)

 Having correctly paired all the binder sets, we seal the boxes and label them for the FedEx guy.

3:00 am - We leave for the hotel

 And so I returned to the hotel, sweaty but unbowed.  I took the longest shower on record (without external inducement), and fall into bed for my 3 hours of sleep.

 The moral of our tale, you might ask?  Only this:
1)  No good deed goes unpunished
2)  Kinko's is not the swinging joint one might assume, even on a Thursday night.