It Feels Good to be the Hero

The past few weeks at work have been pretty intense trying to create a large manual from scratch for a very complicated piece of software in a very short period of time (3 weeks, to be exact). The project manager for the job was nervous about whether or not I would be able to meet my deadline of Oct 31. I kept calmly reassuring him that I would get his manual done on time, if not early, and that he had nothing to worry about. The poor guy has had a lot on his mind trying to coordinate everyone's efforts in order to meet his extremely tight product launch deadline of Nov 1. I was just one of the minions whose work he needed to come together at the right time.

I worked closely with a guy from the PM's team, who spent hours teaching me how to use the software and then reviewing what I wrote to make sure I understood what he said and what I wrote was correct. After each of our meetings, I would spend the next couple of days documenting the software. Sometimes I had to stay a bit later at night to make sure I kept my document on schedule. It also meant my participation in the work Halloween party on Monday was very limited.

Luckily, I think very highly of the PM, so I was willing to do what it took to get the job done correctly and on time and never once complained about it. I wanted him to have faith in me and my abilities to meet his project needs, and to also show that I respect him as a PM.

I officially became one of his heroes on Wednesday when I sent him his completed manual, two days early, for review. I know I totally made his day, if not his week. He sent back a few edits, which I made before lunch yesterday and sent it back with an email that said something along the lines of, "Now you can wipe the sweat off your brow and sleep tonight. Your massive manual is done, not only on time, but early, as promised." :) I received the following email in response, "Yeah your saving my ass on this for sure…I really appreciate your help on this and I’ve told [a VP] that much as well! You’ll pulled off the impossible so great job!"

Let me just say, I feel really awesome today. :)