I have always been someone who takes calculated steps, mostly optimistic about positive outcomes and hardly steps back after seeing a negative impact and exactly on such cases I was thrown into an atmosphere from where I had no way to tackle the situation and avoid mass humiliations.
“Hey Minhaj, you have been selected for this year's XYZ presentation from our end at the ABC conference hall on Sunday morning,” said my superior to me with a neutral facial expression, haven't seen such an expression from him before today. I was shocked for a moment, was trying to process what he has just told.
I asked with wonder, “How's this possible? I don't belong to this department, where are the people who were working on the project? They are supposed to do this, how will I do this?” I was blank the whole time.
“Please don't say no, the assigned peoples have some unavoidable emergencies on that day and will not be able to attend the program. Someone else must carry this on….” he said these words and now I could feel his eyes with a little bit of worryness thinking what if I don't do this either.
It was 2023, and I was nominated for a presentation on something very technical that I had no idea about. It wasn’t even something that could be understood within a few glances apart from having a very clear concept about the project, the audience was also from this very niche so they gonna throw some serious question at the end of the session for sure.
“But how am I gonna do this? I have completely no idea what's going on there, how will I be presenting? How will I be tackling the questions coming from them when I have completely zero idea? Will get mass humiliated for sure,” I was worried from my end as well.
“We got two days in between, I know you can do this, get prepared and save us from the penalty if we don't show up on the stage with the project overview,” said my superior with a smile as he has a mountain of hope with me and knows I will come up with a solution somehow to save our ass.
He put his hands on my shoulder, tapped and walked away, it was heavy as hell on my shoulders, and I could feel the burden of responsibilities on me. But I was clueless as well on how to do that.
I was wicked, I know I must do that, if not done well then there will be some embarrassing situations as well. What I did was I asked the project manager to assign me the project members out of their duty hours to showcase the project, explain to me the things, solve my queries, and help me understand everything step by step.
“I must prepare, so they must give this extra effort to me as well to help me prepare, otherwise it's no way possible for me to tackle. This is my condition, they will be giving extra hours to me as I will be giving as well.” I said to my superior as I must do it no matter what.
“Well, that's a good idea, I am assigning them to you, they will be contacting you within an hour and prepare schedules as you guys see fit,” my superior was convinced by the idea.
I do remember they gave me countless hours to explain things to me, solve my queries, and debug the errors I was stumbling on. This continued for two days, and both of us spent extra hours on it. From being a complete noob on the project and its topic, I got a good grasp with a view to tackling the questions from the audience, that's what was my primary aim to hit.
Finally, on the event date, I was able to hit the roof and impress everyone. My superior was so impressed with me that he genuinely felt that not even the people assigned to the project could have done so well as I did. He clapped so hard that I could hear his claps from the stage distinguishably from the rest of the audience, and I was really impressed with my performance as well, lol.
“I knew You could do this, did better than they could have done, bravo!!” he tapped on my shoulder once again and this time I didn't feel any weight on my shoulder, maybe because of the burden that had been lifted pretty well.
This was the moment when I too felt proud of myself for real, like I had acquired what wasn't my cup of tea. It was really an achievement that was acquired by me beyond my imagination. It was my superior’s faith that helped me move the mountain and that too with excellence.