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

I have back up slides from a colleague now. I can slot them in. And yes, partially my fault this is a last minute thing. We both failed to organise ourselves and get the deck finished before arriving here.

My manager will not be able to offer any practical help - he doesn't know enough about what we do to provide me with any documents/slides to help.

Christ, I've got stupidly pissed on a works do before, and I might not mind having one or two drinks at the most AFTER I'd sorted out the following day's presentation, but I just couldn't let down the person I was going with, it wouldn't occur to me! She's batshit to treat this as a night off and be putting booze on expenses (it's not as if she's entertaining the client!). She seems not to understand the expenses side of things let alone professionalism, planning ahead, priorities or anything else sane!

Missing point of thread here but where are you? I want to go if drink is that cheap its obviously somewhere in the west of Spain or Portugal..

I hope your colleague pulls it out the bag tomorrow

OK so you're ready to go alone? That's what I'd do, and have done in the past although not because of drinking!

Leaving aside the question of why you are putting together presentations the night before an important meeting (i regularly did this, worked much better under time pressure, but I was on my own), I think I would cover my own arse, whilst trying to spare hers.
Email boss with 'Dear Boss, Colleague is unwell tonight and is likely to remain so. She is unable to work with me on this presentation. I have, and will continue to work on it throughout the evening, any input you could give would be gratefully received.'

Pretty obvious to anyone reading it what you are actually saying, but stops you from feeling crappy, gives colleague an 'out' if she miraculously comes up trumps and gives boss some breathing space to decide what to do.

Good luck!

Yes Tremelo - you may have to present with her again in the future and it'll likely just happen again. God knows what state/use she'll be tomorrow when she wakes up with a stonking hangover.

I'm sorry but I'd be reporting it when I got back to my office - if the client saw her it would be really unprofessional and could lose an entire contract for your employer.

We're in Portugal

If my bonus was linked to this I'd make damn sure that the entire deck was prepped & run through before getting on a plane. Lesson learnt for you. But your colleague is an idiot, for sure.

How important is her section? Can you do this presentation alone and still win the pitch? I wouldn't be planning to hand over blank slides to her in front of a client (that looks petty and puts your organisation in a shitty light); I would be planning to do this pitch without her.

I would also contact my boss. Not sure of the specifics of your role, but in my line of work, my boss would be able to cover. She shouldn't have to, because the whole point would be it had been delegated to me and a colleague, but she would be able to go into firefighting mode, help me deal with a shitty presentation overnight and then deal with the bollocking of the other colleague in the morning.

And as someone else's boss myself, this is precisely what your boss is for. When things go to shit, you tell them. They can either reassure you that you're dealing with things as best as possible, or use their experience to point out there is a better way and/or help you if necessary.

Don't suffer this alone. Point scoring is irrelevant. It's about what you can do to win this client at this 11th hour.

Now that you have the slides are you ready for tomorrow's presentation?

Is she a spurs fan or an ajax fan?

Either way I'd be preparing to do the pres on my own in the morning if I were you.

I agree with Tremolo, if I were your manager and you have covered up inappropriate behaviour of your colleague, I would lose any trust I feel for you. It would make me wonder what other inappropriate things you are willing and able to hide.

But understand you don’t want to tell tales even when it can backfire on you. I have been making up for the errors of a colleague, and putting with a lot of unprofessional stupid behaviour... she needs going but now I can’t talk to the boss because she complained to him about me and now he thinks whatever I tell him is said out of spite.

I would even be tempted to let her sleep through it to avoid her ruining things further.

You could say that she doesn't appear to be feeling very well - that way, she has a chance to come through, you've already alerted them to a possible problem and, more to the point, if it goes tits up, you can then kick her under the bus and say 'She got ratarsed'.

And tell them when you get back in any case. If she has a drink problem, she's probably done it before and they already suspect something, if she hasn't, well, at least she'll not be put in a position to fuck you and the company over again.

You have to protect yourself as well as the company. She doesn't pay your salary - but she can take it away - and not just your bonus, your entire job if she then says 'but Eastie was with me doing exactly the same!'. Which she will.

You’ll have to pull it together yourself - give her til tomorrow, no way i’d Be dropping her innit right now.

You sound like a good person by not dropping her in it. If only more people were kind like you. She’ll be upset with herself if she’s normally conscientious. You’ll get through the presentation ok. All the best!

Yes, give her until early tomorrow morning, then alert your boss if she's still 'unwell'.

So I looked at her slides. She has downloaded a generic deck from our internal sales portal but it is not tailored for the client so cannot be used. No client logos, their use cases etc. So I am going to have to use the slides my colleague thankfully sent me for a similar vertical to the client and present alone and do the demo on my own. I know the client fairly well, hopefully will be able to just 'wing it'. I will see how she is in the morning - if she is too hungover to attend the meeting I will tell the manager she was too sick to attend and she will have to explain herself.

I would assume from now on that she will be as much use as chocolate teapot.
Can you do the presentation without her? Surely you alone is better than with her hungover as hell and unprepared. Would the client believe she has been struck with a nasty bug of food poisoning or something to explain her absence and you winging it somewhat.

She sounds like a liability, is she still running around drunk?

Eastie
Stop thinking like a woman.
Think like a bloke who wants his bonus.
Warn your boss TONIGHT that she got bladdered and thus that the presentation was not able to be finalised as planned.
If you both wing it, so be it.
If not, you have covered your arse.

She sounds useless! Good luck, I’m sure you will do great without her tomorrow. When you get back to work make sure you tell your manager what she was like

I would still cover yourself with your boss - let them know beforehand. I'm sure it will go well but only because you have put the energy into it - you should be getting the credit!

Equipment failures do happen so this is the backup set of slides yes;?.

Pity about that plane food or the local delicacy that gave her food poisioning ?, perhaps not they might be offended.

You sound very together and rescourcefull Eastie 77

Well done:-)

Omg, you must be so stressed. I’d fucking go mental at her, what a complete idiot!