Why this casual behaviour with no sense of shame?

I once had a boss who, when the deadline for a crucial book you were editing was nigh, would always be on the phone threatening to “come to your office and lay an egg right there on your desk”.

In the hectic publishing world, deadlines are not just a day or time when the project ends. Deadlines churn things in your stomach, make you dream about a non-existent error on page 34 that you forgot to correct and which will appear in print for many months.