This Story Requires A Pre-Pre-Pre-Reading

At the time of this story, it is a Tuesday afternoon.

Boss: “Hey [my name], I have my monthly meeting with [client] a week from Friday. I would like to show them [analysis]. Would it be reasonable for you to do the analysis and to put that together into a deck by then?”

Me: “Sure, that should take about a week. If I pivot to it now, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Boss: “Okay, the client requires materials to be sent more than 36 hours in advance as a pre-read. Since the meeting is on Friday morning, we should aim to have things sent out on Wednesday EOD.”

Me: “Makes sense, shouldn’t be a problem.”

Boss: “Actually, the account team is probably going to want eyes on it first, so we should get it to them on Tuesday so they can do a round of revisions.”

Me: “…okay, that’s getting a little tighter, but should be doable.”

Boss: “Actually, [Department head] is close to this one, too, and he will want to review as well. But he is out of the office Monday/Tuesday, so you would need to meet with him about it on Friday afternoon. We would also need to show the results to the [product] team to make sure your conclusion isn’t running counter to theirs. They have a workshop on Friday, so maybe we could meet with them on Thursday morning. But they will need some time to really dig into the weeds, so we should probably send them a pre-read.”

Me: “…so you need the weeklong analysis by tomorrow afternoon?”

Boss: “…fair point. Let’s aim for next month’s client call instead.”