This is apparently a common experience among secretarial staff in many businesses, where there is a buffer between the people at the top and those who keep the gears turning under the hood.
“Just run off a letter to the client.., and include the samples.” (or whatever it is).
Well.., that’s not quite as easy as just hitting the print button.
Back in the 90’s when I was a wee kid, I had a similar job at a large insurance firm, (waaaay down the food chain). One of my tasks was to transcribe, from audio cassette (using a start/stop foot pedal), the dictations from some of the senior sales reps.
You had to type that in, (going back and forth to work out mumbled words), format into paragraphs, clean up the grammar, get it okayed by the manager, fix it again, get the fancy letterhead just so.., and if you were quick on your feet.., why, you could drop the letter in the out-box for pick up by the mail room guy within maybe two or three hours! Though, usually it was end of day, (or next morning), depending on the amount of work moving through the office on a given day.
We were running a whole miniature publishing outfit with press deadlines and the whole bit.
Very often, it was easy for the folks in the sales department, (in their fancy suits and snappy haircuts, zooming in and out like wunderkind), to not realize just how much fiddly nonsense was required to meet even a simple request. (Though honestly, our sales reps were much loved and admired as we worked to support their efforts. They pulled in the cash which saw everybody getting paid, after all. But sometimes.., it felt like babysitting!)