It is not often you get the chance to wipe away eight months worth of hard work in one foul swoop. I had that chance, and unwittingly took it with both hands. Eight months undone by one simple error.
As part of my Marketing course at Newcastle, you could choose between an individual dissertation like everyone else, or a dissertation group project with five randomly selected strangers, where you had to market a concept up until implementation.
I ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhhed’ over which one to do, mainly because I wasn’t sure I could do either very well, so it was a case of damage limitation. I decided in the end that it was better to succeed or fail as a collective, a cog in the machine, rather than a valiant individual effort crashing and burning.
I decided to go for the group project, but did so in the knowledge that a game plan must be formulated. As far as master-plans go, it wasn’t the trickiest to conceive: peer reviews were essential. You could score an outrageous ten per cent above the group mark if your peer review was perfect, so this is where I knew I could purchase some percentile.
This decision was vindicated as the months rolled by, as it became apparent that my team was an extremely effective working unit, myself included, one which would convene to create the pancake house named Whisk~it. I was mocked remorselessly for wearing my Whisk~it t-shirt, but I didn’t care; I had taken to this project with aplomb.
It was with energy and excitement that I attended every meeting over the course of the eight months. I was vocal in meetings, made the best attempts at getting work done by deadlines, and made sure everyone in the team was content with what they were doing. I volunteered to do the six presentations, despite being terrified of presenting. In short, peer review was the goal, and I was gunning to score.
And so we reach the final day of the eight months, the day of the final presentation. This was it, the final reckoning, the last piece of the jigsaw. One last nerve-jangling fifteen minute presentation, and I was done, Whisk~it over and out. I was swanning serenely to the finishing line, my work almost complete. Peer review was looking juicy.
I was presenting with Whisk~it’s team leader, a girl who, in my honest opinion, made Whisk~it the success it was with her dedication and hard work. We met inadvertently in the computer cluster before the run-through was scheduled, as we were printing off presentation notes. We hugged, good lucks were exchanged, then she left to find a room in which we could practise. I told her I’d be there soon, giving myself time to go to the shop to buy some breakfast.
And there it was. There was the opportunity I had not been looking for. The chance to wash away all of that hard work, like the tide rippling over an impressive sandcastle. A lingering, unmistakable scent that would stimulate me into making my error. What’s that I can smell? Is it… Is it vomit? My nostrils were clear, but my mind was drowsy, however, I was certain. Had my co-presenter been suffering spats of nerve-induced vomiting? The alternatives were banished as I reached for my phone to report the action.
My thought processes have been known to be a little irrational from time to time, and it was with this characteristic that I acted. I was thinking here that if the nerve-induced vomiting were to happen in practise, I would a) be very poor at comforting/dealing with it and b) wouldn’t be happy cleaning it up on my lonesome. The recipient was a member of the team who I was close friends with:
“I’m worried about *****; She’s really nervous; She smells of sick”.
I placed my phone back on the table, my Vomit Reaction Squad informed. Inwardly praising my skills of delegation, I glanced back at the Blackberry’s miniature screen.
It was to my horror and disbelief that what I saw was not a message sent to my VRS, but in fact a message to the subject herself, the team leader, whose apparent nervous disposition was the reason behind the message in the first place.
If I had been a bit drowsy before, I was wide awake now, eyes fixed on the screen, mind desperately racing to think of a way to unsend the message. Of course, that was impossible. Could I run to where she was, grab the phone, delete the message and save the situation? Not if my sporting track record up until this point was anything to go by. Usain I am not.
Those familiar with Blackberry Messenger will know about the little ‘D’ and the little ‘R’, that indicate when the message has been ‘delivered’ and ‘read’ respectively. As I watched those little ‘D’s’ turn, I knew the damage had been done. I knew the brittle mettle of the poor girl had taken an unexpected battering. I watched with my mind’s eye as my peer review melted away, draining into a chasm.
There was no way out of this. I had to go and see her, repair the situation, glue the shattered pieces of my peer review back together as best I could, and practise for the presentation. Time was a-ticking. Breakfast was out of the equation; the sooner this was addressed the better, despite my stomach’s grumbling complaints. I optimistically thought she might act in a stereotypically British way, stiff upper lip, ‘let’s ignore that shall we and carry on’. But unfortunately, I was very wrong.
I hadn’t so much as set foot in the room, before she launched a tirade at me that was as bitter as the offending odour that got me into this mess:
“And who the F@CK WAS THAT MESSAGE MEANT FOR?!!! What gives you the RIGHT TO SAY I SMELL OF SICK?! You’re a B@STARD AND I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU! I don’t even know if I CAN DO THIS PRESENTATION NOW, especially NOT WITH YOU!”.
As her trembling voice rhythmically bore her rage, I knew I had done a booboo. I’d made a mistake. I protested the good nature of the message, conceding that it wasn’t the most tactful combination of words, but it was essentially meant for her well-being. I don’t think she bought it, but she calmed down a little, and eventually we started to practise. Needless to say, the atmosphere in the room was a tad awkward.
In the end, the presentation went quite well considering the monumental spanner I’d placed in the proverbial works, and my peer review didn’t quite take the hit I had anticipated. Again, my powers of recovering these situations served me well.
The one thing that did amaze me about the whole episode, however, was the timing of my error. Eight months, and I pick the very last few hours to shoot myself in the foot. Pretty sick, if you ask me.
The Warm Up 