Story Time!
Story time!
Very early in my career, I remember calling my mom at 3am in hysterics.
“Is everything okay, baby?” She asked worriedly.
“IT'S ALL GONE!” I exclaimed through tears.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been working on this big presentation for my new job and my presentation is gone. It didn’t autosave. IT couldn’t help! What am I going to do?”
I could hear her sigh in between my sobs. At the moment, I didn’t care. I was as good as fired.
“I thought you were assaulted.” she said annoyed.
*dramatic pause*
“NO! MY PRESENTATION IS GONE,” I cried.
I continue to sob. Pushing past her annoyance.
“Okay,” she said, putting on her mom jeans. “You’ve already written it. It’s in that brain, so you can write it again. You can do this.”
With that, I got back to work. I pulled out my trusty outline that I had used to craft my original presentation and slowly but surely I put it all back together.
When I got to work that day, I explained my episode (and subsequent meltdown with IT [I didn’t dare mention my meltdown with mommy] to get it back.
Thank God for empathy in leadership because my amazing boss echoed the same sentiment as my mom and helped me build and refine the deck in time for the deadline.
The gag is, they bought the idea, but it was a complete revamp of the original idea. I learned three lessons that day that I keep in mind when creating presentations:
Always have an outline for your deck
“Save As” and Autosave (BOTH). Autosave is a liar.
Don’t get married to your ideas for clients because they will always change.
For Mommy: Think before you dial your mom for non-life threatening things at 3am.
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