I've recently been doing a kind of retro of my past jobs; most of it has been appreciative inquiry – What did I like most? What work made me feel the happiest? The hope is that this can focus my needs as the job search continues.
Appreciative inquiry isn't really fun, though, in terms of blogging. There needs to be some conflict or insanity. How boring would a blog post be about how I found fulfillment in organizing my old company's documentation and research library?
I really found myself in constructing elaborate documentation stacks. I, too, am a long list of information and contradictions… By looking into the depths of the wiki, I found my soul.
This could be because I have really boring interests and am slowly learning that any interactions with people are difficult and annoying to me.
But, in my resolution to post a blog a week (which is actually killing me – I do not have much to say), I found a drafted blog about a particularly cruel and horrific experience that happened in my last job. I had started writing it after it happened, but I think the wounds were still so fresh that it never really took off.
I found that it was such a complete disaster of an experience that I needed a new word to describe the event. I think Germans may have a word for it, since they have words for everything, please see:
Lufschloss: air-castle, for an unreachable dream
Kummerspeck: gaining weight from comfort eating
Innerer Schweinehund: (2 words, but fantastic) your inner pig-dog; your disorganized self that keeps you from going to the gym or clean your home
And, I think one that we should just name 2020 after:
Lebensmüde: life-tired; basically, when you're just done with everything
But, as I actually know 0 German, and the above is brought to you by a Google search, I don't know if they have a word for it. There may even be an English word, but it's so specific, I’m not sure. Anyway, I chose to call it:
Conblunder (v.): in the face of utter and epic failure, forging toward completion. See also: Fyre Fest
I conblundered the race; I didn't train for it at all.
In this instance:
I conblundered my first major client training for my last job.
The situation needs some context, because it really was a trainwreck from the beginning; the Amtrak didn't even make it out of the station before it flipped over and was consumed by flames.
Essentially, when I started the job, my boss said that I would own a client relationship before the end of the year (which gave me 4 months). One of her friends need assistance, so we agreed to do the gig at a reduced rate since A) it was a friend and B) they'd be getting me (the benchwarmer) to actually run the show.
It was to be a company-wide, soft skills training on one of our most basic skills – a communication session on feedback and listening.
So we thought.
Leading up to the event, the client contacts were super busy with their own work, and I actually had a vacation planned the weekend before the training. I kept pinging them with the deck, asking for edits, and checking in, but they never responded. Or responded frantically. I literally always pictured these women in fire trucks, sirens blaring, speeding down the highway to some crisis.
Tedd,
Very busy! Clients! Get back to you soon!
Cheers,
They did choose to respond the day I left for my vacation with roughly 1.5 million edits to the content we had provided. Turns out they didn't want that basic, communication-focused training at all! Fun!
They wanted to delete stuff, change activities, alter the worksheets, reorganize content, add their own examples, update information – really, you name it and it needed to be changed.
Normally this is fine, but I had a few hours to get all the updates done and get it over to them for final approval before I needed to be on a plane for Mexico. I was sweating blood at 7:30 pm the last day of work, trying to get everything edited/printed and prepped for the day I got back. The workdays at this business were long, in general – sometimes I'd work from 7-7; since this was the day before a break, that was most definitely the case. I was bleary-eyed with a stapler, trying to get the newly edited packets put together. Between 5-7:30, I think I had 4 cups of coffee trying to not pass out.
But, I did it! At about 7:30, I sent over all the completed materials to get final approval.
The thing is, I didn't trust them… After they agreed to everything in our content pitch and then changed 90% of the information, I didn't want to prep materials that would be tossed out. I assumed they'd actually look at the stuff before the event, so during vacation, I checked to see if all the edits were approved so I could run prep on the deck for the actual delivery.
They didn't respond.
At the end of the vacation, I was in the airport at Guadalajara at 7pm refreshing my email to see if … I knew what I would be presenting the next day. I literally had to be on a stage in front of 60 people in a little more than 12 hours presenting… something? At this point, I was growing frantic, because the client was in the suburbs and it was an hour drive to them, and I had another 2-hour training the following morning. Lolz. So basically, I would have to get up at 5am to prep the actual content I would deliver.
While in Guadalajara, the approved deck did come through, I was in the airport pacing around and silently mouthing the content in preparation for the training. I had prepped a portion of it, but a huge chunk in the middle was all new stuff I'd made up, which I had forgotten during my drunken weekend in Mexico.
I continued to review the materials on the plane as best I could. But it was 9pm and I had just spent a five days in Mexico, so most of the plane ride was spent sleeping.
That night we got home at midnight. As a bonus, it was early November yet somehow -10 degrees in Chicago; the ground was covered in ice and snow, and a frigid wind was gusting through the terminal as we waited for the Uber.
Because I had to go directly to the burbs after my first training at 9; I had to make sure that I woke up early enough to de-ice my car in the morning and drive downtown and park (which I’d never done) so that I could leave at 8:30am to get to the 9am training. My alarm was set for 6 so I could get dressed and rush out the door and hopefully have a solid hour to prep the materials for both client trainings in the morning.
As I laid in bed at 1 am that night, my stress was so thick a fog on my consciousness, that I didn’t even know what to be stressed about:
Should it be making sure I had downtown parking at 7 am?
Should it be de-icing my car at 6 am?
Maybe it’s the forum I was leading that I hadn’t prepped for?
Or the training for a new client I hadn’t gotten to prep for?
Maybe it was the 1-hour drive to the burbs in ice and snow that I hoped wouldn’t be plagued by delays?
Was it the fact that this was my first, real client and I couldn’t f&%k it up?
I just didn’t know.
The day started out great with me digging out my giant winter coat and scraping the layer of ice off my car at 6:30 am. After twenty minutes of scraping, I got in, drove to the parking gate and realized that my clicker didn’t work.
I couldn’t get out of my parking lot.
I was trying very hard not to panic, planning where I could buy a 9-volt battery and – in preparation for more panic – what if the battery wasn’t the issue?
So I’m getting ready to park again when I see a lady approach her SUV. I frantically run up to her and yell, "Can I follow you?! My clicker's broken!"
This woman singlehandedly helped me change my perspective. She was sipping a giant coffee, turned, completely unbothered (remember it's dark in a parking lot and I just ran up to her screaming) and she goes, "Of course, sweetie! One of those days!"
The rest of the morning was a blur: I found parking downtown, did about 30 mins prep for the big session before heading out to the small session from 9-11. I ran from there back to my car to drive out to the burbs.
As I drove out, I was trying to review all the content, speaking out loud about managing up and communication practices. The whole time I was trying not to panic, realizing that I was about to run a 3-hour event for 60 people at a new client company and had little to no preparation for the session.
Inbetween shouting listening tools to no one in my car, I tried to zen out:
"Be the woman with the coffee in the parking lot. No one can bother you. It is one of those days. Ohhhhmmmmm."
I get to the training site and our key contacts help me set up the room.
“You ready, Tedd?!" they asked excitedly.
My response: "Yes! Of course! What did I do – not prep this content and sprint around Chicago all morning filled with unquenchable anxiety? LOLOLOLOLOL".
As we approached 5 minutes to the training, the room started to fill. I was taking deep breaths and trying to quickly review the material while also talking myself off a cliff.
"It's fine. What's the worst that can happen? Read the slides. Wing it. If they don't know you don't know what you're doing, then they'll think it's all on purpose."
I stood off to the side as I was introduced by our key contact. She said my name and my many (made up) accomplishments, then I stepped up to the lectern.
This was it. The apex of pure, raw conblunderment. I looked at the sea of people and the only thought that went through my head was:
"I am truly f%&ked."
It was that point when I realized, not only did I not have a full grasp of what I was even talking about for 3 hours, but I also had never spoken in a room that large. It was like a hurricane of new, difficult things hit me all at once.
But in the conblunderment there was empowerment. I had to keep moving. I couldn't think about it. I couldn't stress about it. I literally just had to start talking and get through slides.
I'd like to say that the session was a success. That my anxiety was misplaced – but it was a mess.
Absolutely no one thought my jokes are funny. Each witticism was met by a gaping, uncomfortable 5-second silence.
Also, if you've never spoken in a room that large the energy is BIZARRE. So, in a small classroom, people can't "hide." Even if they disengage, you can be like, "Hey, Joe. What did you think about this concept?" Then they have to put their phone away.
With 60 people, in a forced corporate learning setting, you're lucky if 10% don't look like someone just told them they have a terminal illness.
I had never dealt with that before. An added bonus was a fat, blond woman in the front row, who hated me so much that she had her arms crossed and would AUDIBLY groan any time I made a joke or asked a question. She was literally a heckler.
Heckler was in the front, and in the back was our contact, who was so stressed about the success of this training, that she was perched on her seat, biting her nails and scanning the room as if someone had made a bomb threat.
So that was fun.
But we got through it.
Did I make sure the exercises went way too long, so I didn't have to talk as much? Maybe. Did I give the most bare bones explanation to just get through material quickly? Correct.
At the end, I had a failure hangover. I could barely move as I paced the room picking up the supplies.
Our contact (the percher) came up to me and goes: "How do you feel?!"
And, probably to my detriment, I was completely honest. I go, "I feel awful. Did it seem awful?"
The woman looked surprised and just goes, "No. It was fine" and walked away.
Woof.
I had to do another session for this client a month later. They completely changed the content and plan for the curriculum again – one day before the training.
But, if there's one thing amazing about conblundering one training for a client, it's that the stakes are so low the next one can be whatever you want it to be.
I walked right into that training having prepped the new material I'd just seen 12 hours before and did a very mediocre job. Our new assistant at my company joined me for the training to help with set up and learn the training ropes. She came up to me after and her first words were:
"Wow, that blond woman hated you. She rolled her eyes at everything you said."
Yes, blond woman was back. Yes, she felt it necessary to heckle a second time and sit directly in the front row.
But, this time, I hadn't been paying attention to her. I'd looked at the woman at table 3 who smiled and nodded frequently. So I didn't creep her out, I also threw glances at the man with a beard who started asking questions in this second training.
Did 90% of the room still look like they had diarrhea? Yes. But I looked at the 10% who were at least vaguely interested.
I turned to our new assistant and channeled my best zen-coffee-parking-lot-neighbor:
"It was one of those days, sweetie," I said. "You're lucky if 10% of the people don't look like they would rather be hit by a train than hear a word you say."
And it was at that moment that I realized the amazing power of the conblunder: When you're on the other side, you have a lot to teach others; and, you truly, 100000% know that it could have been worse.