Why do I make difficult jobs for myself?

Ok, so recently my job has done some mad recruiting and we should be getting a fairly large group of newbies walking through our doors soon. I'm excited for them to arrive, especially since we've been so short staffed recently, but why did a coworker and I take it upon ourselves to create one of the most complex books for them? The book is a travel guide to the area. Easy enough concept, right? Put places to live, eat, and see in there and you're done right? Wrong. Great idea until you start gathering all the info for it and creating a spread sheet to make since of it all and that's just the beginning. I haven't even begun to input it all in the layout I've made. Not to mention the maps that we need to have someone create to show where these places are. I've never thought much about travel guides before. But now it's not just a matter of putting the information it, but then also what kind of details to provide.

What's really important to the reader, do they really care to have a description of the Chinese takeout I recommend? What would I say for that anyway? Um, it's Chinese . . . it's takeout, you can eat it, and it's good. Same with all the other type of listings? Do we really need to put spa information in there? Or do salons kinda cover that and we'll let them figure out where to get a massage?

Not to mention just the sheer amount of volume this thing has! I've been putting in information for the past hour and I'm only two sections into Alexandria. I have two more to finish and then on to the next city. Good grief. Not to mention the fact that we wanted a draft by the beginning of Nov. Yeah, make that sometime in Dec . . . first of the new year maybe? How long can we really afford to push this thing back anyway? Looks like the next month will be filled with more overtime than I would like, but we eventually need to somehow get this thing done (and yes, preferably before the new year). I certainly have a new found respect for the people out there in the world that put these kind of things together. Wish me luck! I'm going to need it!