I was always on that end - in a distant-ago job I'd somehow fallen into a position of looking after a server box for our subdomain that was under someone's desk

I was always on that end - in a distant-ago job I'd somehow fallen into a position of looking after a server box for our subdomain that was under someone's desk. Every year I'd preempt it and email our procurement and IT teams asking for a renewal months in advance (knowing the red tape means I'd get it JIT). And, every year it wouldn't be renewed or bought until the day after expiry when I had enough complaints from people to light a fire under someone's arse. The whole cert-package back and forth was a nightmare, am glad LE exists with auto renewals (or even manually pushing a renewal with one line is easier than the old).