Chefs, has this ever happened to you? You check in with a cook multiple times during prep to be sure she’ll be finished with her place before service. She seems in the weeds, so you keep stopping by, asking questions, offering assistance, but she keeps insisting she’s on target. Then, at 5:31, the ball drops; she confesses she was over her head, and now she’s missing her entire station.

You feel anger, disappointment, frustration – but mostly panic, as the orders start rolling in.

It’s the same way journalists feel when you tell them you’re going to give them a quote/recipe/interview, but you keep putting off that phone call or e-mail.

If your cook is struggling to get her place ready for service, better for her to tell you she can’t handle it than to pretend she can and then come up empty-handed when the doors open.

Likewise, if you don’t think you can deliver by a reporter’s deadline, better to take a pass from the start than to become the reason for that person’s panic.