3-Month Report in 2 Days

The impossible things one is capable of doing when one has to do it. I would never have thought that I can produce a set of quarterly reports within two days, given that all of the required statistics and measurements are still "out there" uncollected. Story is, I was filling in for this girl who's going on a maternity leave. For two afternoons, she was telling me where to pull numbers for all the platforms that she's maintaining, and how to generate the proper charts for the different parameters we're tracking. She was putting too much focus on this particular task, I had to ask her how often does she generate these reports. Quarterly, she said. Considering it's now April, I figure still I have three months to go, so no worries. Two days ago, I got an email from her manager inquiring as to how the reports are coming up because she wants them by tomorrow. A quick email to my "mentor" confirmed that no, she hasn't been collecting the stats all these months, and yes, that's now my problem. Right. Made worse by the fact that some of the data were missing from the systems. I can hear her shrug over the phone, "Yeah, I've reported that problem already." Well, thanks for nothing.

And what were my colleagues over at Pyrmont doing at this time? They're on a harbour cruise. One of them even called me and asked me to look out the window if I can spot their sailboat under the Harbour Bridge near Luna Park. Great, guys.