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

Tricky one OP

I have been in this situation, my colleague was doing half, and me the other half.

I was all worried, as she got one of her contacts to whizz us,around fancy restaurants and ended up clubbing...

But on the day, hungover and unprepared, she totally pulled it out if the bag. There was me, Ms Square with her sad powerpoint, whilst she just bamboozled this guy with her charm, and mainly, her empathic listening skills.

The client felt listened to, and taken seriously, and renewed the contract.

My slides were never used

What's the boss supposed to do? confused unless they can actually help, avoid and get help from colleagues instead.

The boss can:
Send over any support or assistance in delivering the presentation, perhaps a call to run through colleague's parts in the morning, maybe skype in to support and inform the client that the colleague is unwell and so boss is skyping in
Contact the colleague and pull them out of the meeting

@DramaRamaLlama

She can inform her manager of her concerns re:colleague whilst still delivering herself. If they lose the client i’m Pretty sure her boss will want to know why she covered for drunk colleague

Drama not in my current role but I did with my previous firm - doing pitches including overseas clients, and managing a team who did as well.

It's not about ringing and panicking down the phone - I don't think a phone call is needed at all. But a factual and brief email would be appropriate, which stresses that everything is under control and this is FYI. If OP doesn't and the shit hits the fan, then she is going to be in an untenable situation trying to defend why she kept quiet.

I never even considered telling my boss.

Missing the point of the thread I know but 200 a day food & drink allowance!?! Wow.

Right? I used to work for a massive international festival in a place where the central industry of the town was festivals - they knew everyone there was on expenses (most with massive expense accounts) so everything was insanely priced.

We got an average of 40€ a day for all food and drink, over the course of the 3 weeks we were there. Fortunately we didn’t have time to eat during the festival, so we could at least have nice meals before and after it 😁

OP. I hope it’s going okay, this is such a nightmare and if you’re anything like me you’ll be taking the full responsibility on, getting no sleep and panicking about it. I wouldn’t go complaining to my boss but I would make them aware of the facts in advance, including what you’re doing to resolve things. Whatever happens you’re then covered - either she has fucked you over or you save the day.

Solitude
The point is that if the colleague is a star when hung over, the boss will note the email and not send them out together again

If she's rubbish then the OP will not get penalised

and if the presentation is rubbish, the boss will be forewarned
and if its fab the boss will be able to plan forwards

£35 a day here - £50 if you are overseas. And even then there are very specific caveats attached to what you can and can't claim, the hours that you need to have worked/travelled to qualify for the allowance and so on. Plus it's pay and claim, so no company credit card unless you are undertaking client entertaining on a regular basis as part of your role.

controversial so why not send that email when with i) everything is under control or ii) you know what you are in fact dealing with for damage limitation?

Her reason for not contacting prior to the pitch is that she wasn't drinking with OP so had no idea how bad she was and was focussed on the immediate issue which was ensuring the pitch was in best possible state.

It's almost 10pm. If one of my team called me to tell me that someone was too passed to do their job I'd be i) furious the pitch hadn't been settled earlier and ii) debating getting on a plane tonight/early hours. Neither of those scenarios are going to leave the OP in a good position. She's better off taking her chances.

Why is she behaving like that? Has something happened in her family?

She’ll absolutely reek of booze if she really has been on the lash all day
I’d be planning to do it alone but chances are she’ll pull it off and you’ll be even crossed tomorrow. People seem to get away with stuff

I bet this is routine for men. I think you're in damned if you do, damned if you don't territory...

I haven't had a chance to read everything in the thread but we are in the restaurant. I brought my laptop planning to download the files and have the USB. She is a football fan and the team she supports is winning a football champions league game and she is running around shouting, drunk (we are in an outside restaurant) egged on by some English businessmen.

I’d be really stressed to do a presentation of that size and still be doing the slides the night before 😕

The $200 is for all food and drink (breakfast, dinner, lunch) for an entire day and discretionary expenses if entertaining a client

And even then there are very specific caveats attached to what you can and can't claim, the hours that you need to have worked/travelled to qualify for the allowance and so on.

Yep - we couldn’t expense alcohol unless bought with food!

I wouldn't wait. 10 am meeting tomorrow less travel time + one woman who's hungover to fuck - you're fucked already for tomorrow's presentation.

But I'd be speaking to her in the very strongest more forceful terms. That she needs to bloody pull herself together, you're NOT doing it in the morning, and you're going nowhere with her this evening unless she completes the presentation with you first. Tell her at that point this is her one and only chance - if she doesn't do this with you or she does but the work is shoddy, you've got no choice but to call a manager back home saying you've been trying to get her to stop drinking all day and the work should come first, any drinking after.

Being very strong with her now is your one and only chance to not have to call the manager. At least then you can say you tried everything - being soft and gentle about it isn't going to go in now that she's already pissed.

If you contact your boss, I would suggest that they may question why for a presentation of this level (facilitating an overnight stay abroad) everything has being left to the night before to put together. You shouldn’t be preparing slides at this late stage, and if you are both responsible for this poor prep for the trip (despite your colleagues obvious shit behaviour) I’d button up, grit my teeth and work with colleges instead of involving the boss.

This is a very good point! Why have you left it so late? Will it reflect badly on you, or is it the nature of the industry/ product?

If this was my team I would want to know.

Call the colleague and get them out of the bar

Remotely we could get the slides over - other team members could put something together overnight.

Run through the presentation with the OP to make sure she had it covered

Let the OP know that even if the account was lost that I had her back.

If there was Skype in the meeting room - do the missing slides myself remotely if needs be.

I would call my boss as soon as it became apparent - you won't be thanked for covering it up even if it goes well.

Op what does she say when you tell her how worried you are

I had a colleague who was lazy as fuck but could turn the charm on when needed and always got away with her bad behaviour.

I liked her, but she was hard work for everyone else 🙄

She's going to be doing great now that they've won, then...

I'm a massive football fan too. Not this team; admittedly, but I've missed some big nights for them when I've had to be working. It's the way it goes.

Is she still drinking with dinner?

I really feel for you.

You need to tell your manager. If it all goes wrong she won't hesitate to drop you in it by blaming you. Believe me I've worked with people like this, however friendly she seems, she won't hesitate to throw you to the sharks to save her own skin.

MrsMaisel
I bet this is routine for men. I think you're in damned if you do, damned if you don't territory...
Not that I've noticed.
Getting hammered after the presentation is part of many party hard industries.
Getting hammered beforehand was not acceptable for men or women in my industry for the last 30 years

If I was your manager, I would consider not appraising me of the situation to be a serious lack of judgement.

I can't believe you're even considering that. She is creating a high risk situation and you're essentially standing by.