So, what is the correct response when someone drops an uber-urgent short deadline project on you, and says, "Gee, I probably should have talked to you about this months ago."

Saying, "Yes, you should have!", while true, seems overly blunt.

The superficially polite response of, "Oh, it's all right," doesn't work very well either. It's not all right. I happen to be able to crank out something that will more or less do the job this time, but I can't guarantee that I'll be able to next time.

I settled for something along the lines of, "Well, I understand that everybody on this team is really busy, and crap happens."

And when crap happens, tech pubs gets handed the shovel.