Mindset

Ever since COVID hit, the image of prepping has gained a more positive image. The idea of a worse case scenario where society degrades into anarchy and civil war has become a more plausible scenario given the political climate of this country. Prepping can involve hoarding food, water, guns, and any other critical supplies in the chance that the infrastructure of society collapses.

I’ve always maintained this mindset in corporate America knowing that as pressure rises, people will throw you under the bus whether it be a boss, coworker, or executive. I don’t always do the best job of staying prepared, but I always anticipate having to stand on my own when I’m left to fend for myself. It may not be ammo or toilet paper I’m stacking, but I try to have analysis, presentations, and models in basic form in case I need to move fast.

Board of Directors

Getting thrown to the wolves for a Board meeting lands at the top of the list in terms of things that can throw you for a loop. I got the notice a week in advance that the owner of the company wanted me to present a new business plan and global process for managing the financials. I worked directly for a C-suite guy and when I asked my boss if I needed to prepare a deck, his reply was “sure, that would be good.”

What do you mean that would be good? Obviously I’m not going to show up empty handed and this was the first red flag that should’ve made me go “hmmmmm.”

Things got hectic that week and our original plan of reviewing the deck got pushed to the morning of the Board meeting. Bad idea. Bad bad idea. Looking back at the situation, there was nothing I should’ve prioritized above this meeting. Waiting to review the deck last minute was such a mistake.

The day of the meeting comes and luckily I was presenting remotely. I had just flown back from the headquarters and they gave me some grace in not having to fly right back the next week. Traveling gets really old and I don’t understand how people actually enjoy this. Even though I hadn’t reviewed the presentation with him, I envisioned that I would have to take most of the heat given my boss doesn’t like confrontation. I practiced this as if I would be the only one covering the material.

Then I get a call early in the morning from the owner.

“Hey, your boss called in sick but don’t worry I’ll be there.”

I politely pretended like I was ready to go but inside I had mixed emotions. My first thought was, well…you better be there because I’m not walking in there alone. Two, my boss had better be in the hospital or ER because this is absurd. Only saving grace was that this presentation was a culmination of all the presentations I had done for the executive management and upper level leaders. The annoyance of having to do the same presentations over and over again somehow paid off. Nothing to do but press on.

Running Late

Meeting time arrives and I’m in the conference room at the local office by myself with my models and deck ready to go. Ten minutes passes and I’m assuming they’re running late from lunch. From my end, the video conference seems to be working fine so it can’t be a technical issue.

Then the owner calls me again. Second time in a day, this can’t be good.

“We can’t get the video conference to work so I’ll have to put you on speakerphone on my cell. Also, you need to email me your presentation.”

I mean, come on. First my boss calls in sick and now they’re going to hear me through the owner’s cell phone with a deck he’s going to have to navigate while he anticipates my next thought. I had all these model views and files prepared to show them the scenarios and business plan but now he was going to show one deck he hasn’t seen before.

I told him I needed a few minutes while I copy and pasted images from dashboards and models I was going to show into the main presentation deck. This deck was originally aimed at being purely an overview before I delved into details.

Meeting Begins

I’m finally up and running as I’m talking through the owner’s cell phone to the Board of Directors. I can sense that he is pointing to the deck that he has up on his laptop and the projection screen. You know, the deck that I’m supposed to be running.

Luckily, I’ve done this similar presentation about a dozen times with the owner and his team so it’s not too foreign. I go through my whole story about how we’re going to build this forecasting process and how I’ve aligned with all the regional and global stakeholders on turning a profitable margin on the business. The owner and my boss felt like I did a good job in the past so they were comfortable with me presenting this to a critical audience.

I felt a bit cocky about the presentation and I expected to hear some sort of awe and applause. Obviously, a little underwhelming given that I wasn’t able to show off all of my automated models running complex Monte Carlo simulation type calculations. Soon as my 20 minutes bit was over, I paused and naively expected to hear applause.

Instead, the first line that I heard was…

“Your model and your forecast looks completely wrong.”

I looked back at my presentation and realized I had copied in the wrong snapshots while trying to rush to put together a quasi deck in 20 minutes for the Board. Good Lord here we go.

Whipping

For the next hour, the Board came after the owner like wolves ravaging a bloody animal. Of course, I got 10% of the heat but the discussion became a bit more strategic and required clarity on the direction of the company. What was the back and forth like? Went something like…

“That’s not what you said 5 minutes ago. Which is it?”

“That makes no sense, how on earth are you going to accomplish that? With your current team?”

Aftermath

The owner spent the next few days having additional sessions with him and the business leaders but I was off the hook at least for the time being. He was happy with my presentation despite the negative blowback because he had actually been in the model and knew what was going on. Before building his company, he spent a decade in technical work so he liked this kind of stuff.

The next week, my boss showed up to work and acted like everything was normal.

“So how did the meeting go?” Are you freaking kidding me? That’s all you got to say?

Needless to say, that was the last straw and I began updating my resume. I moved back into the Fortune 500 arena because I felt like there were certain standards and a baseline level of accountability there. I still did right by the company and even stayed late on the last day of work to help with the transition.

My coworker unprompted let the owner know the great lengths I had gone to. He was surprised but he had always done right by me. There were personal things he did for me that I can’t say here or else it would probably help identify who I am but it’s those things that kept me motived to do right by the company.

Occasionally, I try to keep in contact with the owner and so far he has always responded even years later. Last time we talked, he explained that he had to fire my old boss because it just wasn’t working out. I never let that incident discourage me from doing right by the company because you know…karma.

But I always stay ready with presentations, analysis, reports, or strategy recommendations with anything that I’m involved with. Something that I keep in my back pocket in case someone points the finger to me even though it’s not my responsibility. Most importantly though, keeping the resume up to date each month. It’s my bug out bag.