I was hired in the first job because I had experience with a particular computer code, as well as having a MS in the area in which I was planning to work. I had one week to sit down and learn what another engineer had been doing for a project. She left at the end of the week for another job. I took over the project - and was reasonably successful - although it was a challenge.
I got pulled into other areas for which I had no experience, and that was the proverbial 'baptism under fire'. After two months on the job, I traveled with a senior manager, a VP, to do a technical surveillance of a production process. Somehow I was supposed to take copious notes and ask the right questions on a process about which I knew very little - and was given essentially no preparation. To add to the stress, an engineer from the customer was with us, and I was supposed to appear like I knew what was going on.
I did OK, but my notes were a bit garbled, partly because they staff at the manufacturing plant took us around the facility showing us process steps out of order.
On the morning of the last day, I overslept and the VP called my room and chewed me out for not being efficient and effective. I had 15 minutes to get dressed, pack and rush to the airport. Meanwhile, I had been given the task of bringing along a package of proprietary information, which I left in my hotel room. I didn't discover that I had left in the room until I got to airport. I was hoping that the VP wouldn't ask me for the package - otherwise I'd have to tell him that I left it at the hotel - in which case, I'd have to get a taxi go back and get it and miss my flight.
I called the hotel and they found the package. I had them mail it too me.
Several days later, I was still waiting for the package to arrive. Then one morning during the following week, the VP told me bring the package to his office so we could go over the data. PANIC!
I asked the office manager and secretaries if any package had arrived after I confirmed with the hotel office that the package had been sent. It hadn't arrived! Then the office manager mentioned that sometimes packages for our office ended up in the office of the building management upstairs. So I raced upstairs and discovered that they had the package - and it had been there for a couple of days. RELIEF!
I retrieved the packaged and went back to my office, and took a quick look at the contents. I calmly (but somewhat nervously) walked into the VP's office with the package, and sat down to discuss the project I was supposed to do based on the data. The VP then started to ask me about the data, and he was a bit irritated that I had not thoroughly reviewed the data. There was a lot of data on floppy disks and a lot of documentation.
I didn't explain that I had allowed the package to be temporarily out of my control.
