Work is nailing the presentation in front of your boss and a room full of VPs

Presenting about a project is part of the job. It's great when you're given lots of notice to prepare and make sure everything is ready - the PowerPoint slides, the room you'll be working and every other little thing that matters.

The trick is a bit harder to pull off when you're a member of a team and you're only given a day and half's notice to stand in for the project leader. Oh and by the way, you'll be presenting to your boss and a room full of corporate vice presidents. The day after tomorrow.

Make sure the slide deck is ready. Test everything you can. Rehearse the slides in your mind and out loud. And then before you know it, it's show time.

The interesting thing to me is about the nerves. You can be nervous all you want but as long as you know the material, then it doesn't really matter because you'll be fine. I was nervous on the morning of the presentation but not for long. I thought a lot about how to open and decided on my introduction. The majority of the audience didn't know anything about this project but they would definitely have strong opinions and lots of questions. Lots of direct questions.

So I opened my PowerPoint file and jumped right in. In less time than I realized, I was in the middle of it and every nerve melted away. The room was mine. 30 minutes later they were still in the palm of my hand, and now my boss was providing support by adding his perspective to the questions that were being asked.

It went really well and by the time it ended, I realized it wasn't as much of a presentation but me just telling them about this thing I've been working on. After it ended, I received some really great compliments from the audience and I was flying high.

Can't wait for the next one.

Work is Accidentally Mis-Using Email

By copying the contents of an email regarding a co-worker's upcoming retirement party into a my Lotus Notes calendar, I thought it would be the easiest way to keep track of the details - when the party is, the location of the country club, directions to the place, etc.

I clicked the "Mark Private" box so that these details would only appear on my Lotus Notes calendar and not be visible for the employees entire Division to see.

Little did I know that when I clicked the "Save and Send Invitations" button what would happen. I fully expected to save this meeting - but only for me.

Instead, what actually happened was far worse.

By using the "Copy Into New" function, Lotus Notes automatically copied every recipient of the original email into the "Required" to attend field in my calendar entry.

That's right - every person in my Division was now invited to the meeting I wanted to keep private. Good thing this was only a reminder of a retirement party and not something far worse.

I clicked save and then the fun began. Before I could even navigate back to my inbox, it was nearly filled with "Out of Office" messages. And then my co-workers started accepting and declining my invite.

Unbelievable!

I was so embarrassed. So let this be a lesson to you - check every field before proceeding.