By Rob Buccino (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.)

‘Twas the night before pitching and all through the firms,
Not a worker was idle, not even interns,
The slides were enduring their nineteenth revision,
The art boards reflected abject indecision,
The laptop computers were in IT hell,
While Xerox machines chose this night to rebel,
And during the time that the team should rehearse,
Instead they were putting the pitch in reverse.

Yesterday’s strategy, all had agreed,
Now needed revision, but no one paid heed
To the fact that creative now matched nothing else
And its heartfelt persuasion was lacking a pulse
Account types were screaming at copy and art,
Who yelled at production, who’d known from the start
That all of their plans and their deadlines were phony
And dinner tonight would be stale macaroni
Or pizza delivered from old Sal Monella’s
To all of the gals and the hard-working fellas

The candles were burning to stubs at each end
While the pitching team labored to quickly amend
Their insights to match the most recent respondent
Though the story he told left the planners despondent

And what of the expert flown in from afar?
He’s stuck fighting jet lag in a Lincoln Town Car
The wunderkind media strategy guy
Just lost all his numbers for the agency’s buy
The President’s opening speech says a lot
It will only take all the three hours we’ve got

Which version of slides has the changes we made?
I’m sure it’s the one the designer mislaid.
Who remembered to look at the client’s instructions?
Did we pack business cards? Who will make introductions?
At the dawn’s early light, will we ever be finished?
Can we find our way there, and arrive undiminished?

But somehow it always will all come together
In spite of the chaos, the fights, and the weather
The show will go on, and when it’s all the way through
Merry Pitching to All, may Success Come to You.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves…  Great work, Rob!