When you had a Project at work unexpectedly plunked in your lap

[95438756]

How did you handle it?
I haven't had this experience per se.
Did it involve mentoring new entrants or interns?
Was it to clean up somebody else's mess?

[765489]

How did you handle it?
I haven't had this experience per se.
Did it involve mentoring new entrants or interns?
Was it to clean up somebody else's mess?

Have had it all the time, although not so much in the last couple of years. Sometimes the person who originally had the project wouldn't be competent enough at completing it. Other times it was cleaning up messes made by other departments. Very frustrating when your working on something and you think the day / week is going well and next thing your landed with a bomb.

I used to get annoyed at it when I was younger but now it's a case of right straight onto the manager who's getting paid bigger wages to manage all this sh1t. Good manager with a backbone is essential in dealing with sh1t thrown at you from departments or an underperforming / or in some cases couldn't be assed work colleagues.

[kadman]

I used to notice , once you get one or two awkward project to deal with that someone else cant, and you do it well.
You soon become the office firefighter who will get multiple fires to put out, because you can.

But your relaxed colleagues get paid the same as you

[CelticRambler]

Kinda the fundamental job description for me, so the only time in recent memory that I've been caught out by the "unexpected" was in an interview when I was asked to describe a challenging, stressful situation I'd faced and how I'd dealt with it. Ummmmmmm ... well, by not getting stressed about any challenging situation. (I didn't get the job).

Rule number one: know what resources you have (immediately) available; and rule 1(a) know whether or not they can be adapted to the project concerned. Rule 1(b): if you don't know whether or not the resources are available and/or usable, the first resource you need is the person who does.

[kadman]

I remember one time getting an impossible thing to do on a Cad programme at 5.00pm to do , by an insistent boss, who wanted in immediately.

I knew the programme in use at the time would never be able to perform this task. But the boss, who was cad ingnorant, and an Amway motivational guy, kept telling me, be positive, be positive for 3 hours. After that I could take no more, and on his final " be positive " prompt, I turned to him and said. " Jim, I am 100 % fecking positive that what you want done, cannot be done with this programme" Then he got the message

[765489]

Used to have a director where I worked that everytime I met her in the corridor I could be walking away with some project involving either system development or the creation of a new system. Used to drive me nuts. Then I discovered that if I just let the dust settle on it for two weeks she'd forget all about it

I still have heart palpations when I think of her.