Pulling Teeth

Dissertation writing is hard.  It's a ton of material to organize into a coherent, well-written document.  What might be even harder though?  Getting people to read the damn thing.

My advisor has a policy that she should never be the first person to read anything.  Everything - paper drafts, dissertation chapters, posters for conferences - should be at least proof-read by another labmate before she reads it.  Fair enough, I get it, she's busy, the silly and obvious stuff, especially grammar, should be caught and fixed before it gets to her.  I've certainly done my share of reading for other people.  I also realize that my labmates have plenty of other things to do besides read drafts of my dissertation, but what is a reasonable time frame for this?  A week?  Two weeks?  Longer?

I gave two of my labmates a chapter 5 weeks ago and I haven't had any feedback from them yet.  In one labmate's defense, she explicitly asked if I was in a rush for it and said she had to get a draft of her own paper to her other advisor first.  Fair enough, but how long did she have in mind before being able to get to it?  A month?  Two months?  (Literally, this shouldn't take more than an hour, maybe 2 of their time.  It's 24 pages double spaced, 2 1/2 of which are references, and there are lots of figures.)  The other labmate has mentioned the chapter to me once or twice, but never more than, "Oh, I still have to do that..."  Gah.  If you're not going to read it please just tell me so I can give it to somebody else!  (Though frankly, I gave it to you for a reason, and other people will get certain other chapters for specific reasons as well.)

Now the question is, do I pester them, or give up and just go ahead and give the chapter to somebody else?  (Whom I'd now need to read multiple chapters...)

And if it's this hard to get my labmates to read things for me, how long is it going to take to get The Queen to read my dissertation?  My dissertation has to go to my committee 2 weeks before my defense (which is currently unscheduled), presumably The Queen also needs 2 weeks.  But frankly, hoping for your advisor to read anything within two weeks is like waiting for pigs to fly.  It never happens.  Bottom line?  I'm never going to graduate...