Per my last email
Thursday · 16 hours · 94 slides · 0 daylight
8:02 a.m. Badge in. The lobby smells of eucalyptus and fear. There’s a new art installation: a bronze arrow pointing up. Nobody knows who chose it. Everyone feels judged by it.
9:30 a.m. Kickoff call with the client, a regional insurance company. Thirteen people on the call, two of whom speak. My job on these calls is to “capture actions.” I captured one action: “Halberd to look into it.” Halberd is me.
11:15 a.m. Graham, the engagement manager, would like to “pressure-test the storyline.” This means he’d like to read the deck I sent him last night, which he hasn’t, and which he will now describe to me as if he wrote it.
1:40 p.m. Lunch is a salad eaten over a keyboard in a room called Fjord. All our meeting rooms are named after Norwegian geography. I’ve never been to Norway. I’ve spent 300 hours in Fjord.
4:55 p.m. The partner, Lionel, replies-all to a 40-person thread with one word: “Thoughts?” No context. No attachment. Twenty minutes of panic across three time zones before someone works out he’d meant to forward a different email. Nobody tells Lionel. You never tell Lionel.
7:30 p.m. Graham says he’d love to “align on next steps” before he leaves. He leaves at 7:34. The next steps are mine.
9:10 p.m. Dinner, delivered, billed to the client, eaten in Fjord. I am the only person in Fjord. Fjord at night has a hum.
11:52 p.m. Email from Graham, from his sofa presumably: “Quick favor, can we flip the deck so it leads with the recommendation? Shouldn’t take long.” It is 94 slides. Every slide references the slide before it. It is not a quick favor. It is open-heart surgery on a PowerPoint.
1:47 a.m. Flipped. Sent. Subject line: “Updated deck (flipped per your note).” Wanted to write “per my last email” in the body. Did not. Wrote “Let me know if any thoughts!” with an exclamation mark, the punctuation of the damned.
1:58 a.m. Graham replied. “Thanks!! Actually let’s go back to the original flow, I think it was stronger.” Two exclamation marks. He’s having a lovely time.
2:20 a.m. Car home, also billed to the client. The driver asked if I was a nurse. I said yes. It felt more honest.