Final Rush for the Presentation Pack

It is the final weekend before the start of the Group CEO's budget moderation exercise. Once, this moderation exercise is completed, the budget exercise is more or less drawing to a close. We will be able to start preparing for the next phase - monthly phasing of the yearly budget and start of the new year's product costing.

Although I have been relieved of having to prepare any presentation pack, I was still the one who had been collating all the information and analysis up to the CEO (Singapore)'s moderation session. Hence, it is inevitable that I need to chip in for the last mile. Despite all the information we have gathered, there are still missing pieces or data which we have not thoroughly checked previously. This last minute scramble was to tidy up and rationalise through the numbers.

I spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday afternoon in front of my PC and on the phone running through the various simulations with my boss. Needless to say, my office phone 'died' after one-hour of talk-time even after I had fully charged the day before in anticipation of the busy weekend. Blur me. I did not realise the phone had 'died' and continued to hold it for some time, thinking that my boss seemed to take a long time to think. I was not the only blur one. In fact, my boss carried on talking even after my phone had died, not knowing that she was talking to herself. In the end, we had to continue our 'discussion' over MSN.

The next day, I had to rely on my personal phone to finish up the last bit. Again, my battery nearly went flat after 40 minutes of talk-time. Hmmm, 3G phone seemed to consume alot of battery during talk-time.

During my incidents, my ear was scorched red from the heat generated from the phone. Although I had been tempted to place my phone on speaker for both times round, I decided against it eventually to prevent creating noise pollution to my neighbours.

Finally, it was over FOR THE MOMENT and we sent out the pack in time.

P.S. It was only for the moment because there was another mad rush the following Monday when we were back in office as I had to bring my CFO through the numbers as my boss was still at home recuperating from her ankle injury. Poor boss, for the past few weeks, she had to constantly work at home to review all our budget materials.