A few months into my job, I noticed something off. My boss, Carrie, loved delegation but only the risky stuff. Anything high-profile and polished? That was all her. But the last minute fire drills? Always dumped on me, usually without context, and always when she was mysteriously “unreachable.”
It finally blew up last Thursday. A major client presentation tanked. Slides were missing. Data was outdated. The CEO was in the room. Carrie looked me dead in the eye and said, “Apologies my associate must have sent the wrong version.”
She meant me.
Problem was, I hadn’t touched the deck. I’d offered to help earlier that week, but she told me she had it “totally under control.” So I sat down, opened our project folder, and like magic found everything. Timestamps. Versions. Even a Slack message where she told me not to worry about it.
So I did what any accused employee with cloud backups would do. I compiled everything into a PDF, titled it “Timeline of Project Ownership,” and quietly sent it to her boss with a short note:
“Happy to walk through this if helpful.”
By Monday, Carrie was “taking a leave to focus on personal development.” I’m not saying I took her down. I’m saying she handed me the rope and then tripped over it herself.
Anyway, I’m leading the next client pitch. Funny how that works.
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