On work trip abroad. Colleague gone crazy

[Eastie77]

Just that really. I'm abroad for work, 2 days in a major European city with a client meeting tomorrow morning. I've travelled with a female colleague who, like me, has 2 young DC. When we found out about this trip she messaged me to say she was desperately looking forward to it as she needs a break from the DC and is run ragged juggling everything. I said I totally sympathised and she replied that we should use this trip as an opportunity to get rat arsed on the company's money. I just laughed.

Arrived at the airport this morning for our early flight to find she had already had downed 2 pints but was at least sober. She kicked up a fuss on the plane as there was no alcohol on sale - not massively but enough to embarrass me. Landed and she bought more alcohol and has generally been increasingly drunk, hyper and shrill since saying this is 'her time'. We arrived at the hotel at 3pm and were meant to go over our presentation for tomorrow but I've had zero input from her. I need her to contribute a bunch of slides and practice a demo of the technical solution we are meant to be presenting to the client but she is not playing ball and has just been propping up the bar. I'm stressed. It looks as if I will have to do her slides and I don't have enough knowledge so emailing colleagues back home. I don't want to speak to my manager about this. She is normally quite conscientious

@exWife, OP isn't her colleague's mother.

Colleague is allegedly a responsible adult who is a mother herself. OP had quite enough to do with respect to salvaging the presentation and preparing for her colleague's likely absence at the meeting without babysitting a drunk idiot.

exWife have you RTFT? was the OP meant to wait until 1am watching arsewipe get more pissed while finalising the presentation took a backseat? OP is not a babysitter for drunk colleagues - maybe you're projecting? (I say that as someone who has been sober myself for over a year). OP didn't say anything to her manager - it was the colleague who helped out at the last minute who mentioned it.

Well done OP, ignore the idiots that think you should be babysitting your drunk colleague.

How did it go OP?

i’m a little bit aghast that you left your colleague in a bar with strangers last night. work nightmare aside - this is Not Cool.

What was OP supposed to do? She could hardly drag her colleague out of the bar physically. Was she supposed to stay there with her and allow the presentation to go down the pan? Colleague was an adult in a hotel , she has to be left to make her own decisions.

i still wouldn’t have told my boss though, unless it went completely tits-up and your colleague didn’t show today

OP didn't tell her boss, the workmate who helped her out did. And rightly so.

I use 'hot mess' as an expression. And this definitely qualifies!

Hope the presentation wasn't a complete shitshow, OP, and you've managed to cover your own back. Your colleague doesn't deserve your support if it means your own job will be in jeopardy. She's put herself in this position, not you!

Been there. You had no reason to know that she would let you down like this. Sounds like you made the best you could of the situation.

Fingers crossed that it went well.

It went ok! She did one part of the demo and was clearly struggling with the effects of last night. Embarrassingly enough the client had to correct and assist her on a couple of occasions when she got stuck navigating through the platform. I think I nailed the presentation with the help of my other's colleagues slides and that part went really well. Immediate feedback from client was good, we'll have to wait and see.

Exwife - sorry to hear about your previous struggles. No way was I staying out with her though. Why on earth should I have babysat her? I had to go back and do the work she was supposed to do! I don't think she's an alcoholic, just a complete fuckwit. I have no sympathy for her at all. She chose to stay drinking with 'strangers'. A grown woman, I'm not policing her.

Well done OP

Well done OP.

I hope it's good news OP

Well done OP. Glad it went well. Huge relief for you x

im glad it went as well as could be OP, well done . It all sounds stressful

I'm glad your manager knows. Well done getting through it ok.

She sounds like a nightmare. Although, I would expect to have put the slide deck together and know what you’re presenting before you even got on the plane. Speaking to your manager is going to highlight that you’ve both dropped the ball on this one.

Fingers crossed that you get the best outcome from this, OP, despite the hungover one's poor performance.

I agree that you shouldn't have stayed out with the woman either - you had other responsibilities, as it was a WORK trip.

Well done OP. Would love to be a fly on the wall of your manager's office tomorrow.

Well done, OP. Hopefully you’ve managed to salvage it.

The good news is that you’re on the opposite side of someone who uses phrases like “hot mess” and “square” so no matter the outcome, you’re still doing better than at least one person in the world.

I'm so glad you've updated and that it went ok @Eastie77. I've been completely over invested in this all day!

She sounds like a nightmare. Although, I would expect to have put the slide deck together and know what you’re presenting before you even got on the plane. Speaking to your manager is going to highlight that you’ve both dropped the ball on this one.

Me too

The people saying OP should have got the slides together beforehand - where do you work that gives you this luxury? If the OP works anywhere like my work; she’ll have been finishing off the 80 billion other things she’d have had to do; making sure all client queries are up to date before being semi-out of contact for a couple of days. If she was sitting around in the week beforehand updating her Facebook status, then you’ve got a point, but it’s not uncommon to do this and actually would have worked out perfectly if not for idiot colleague.

As for the PP suggesting the OP babysits her colleague until 1am... right.

Glad the presentation went well. Make sure to be honest about your colleagues performance of your manager asks. It would have been one thing if she’d pulled it out the bag and blagged a perfect performance; but she clearly underperformed due to her behaviour last night. Definitely not on.

Well done op

This is hilarious! Let the woman live for Christ sake she is obviously run ragged with kids and work and life and she has a small taste of freedom and has gone nuts. Cut her some slack she could be really depressed and need this. And yes I know it’s ‘work’ and not fair on you but come on ask yourself why someone who is usually so ‘normal’ is acting like this.

bythebaytoday FFS. And when was the OP’s opportunity to “cut loose” away from the kids?

They could have spent 3-4pm chilling out showering/ unpacking etc; 4-7pm finalising the presentation; then 7pm onwards relaxing with a few beers/wine etc. As it was, colleague got on the piss leaving poor OP stressing out all evening!