… and a sigh of relief. I just got done with a two day presentation to some big shots at a company down in Florida, which effectively sealed the deal for a partnership between our two companies potentially worth well into the upper six figures. This was probably the most stressful assignment I’ve had to date. It didn’t help that I was given less than a week to prepare for this. I actually scared my boss when I gave a crappy dry run of the presentation on Monday to some internal folks– a presentation which I basically winged with hardly any preparation at all because I didn’t have time to work on it over the weekend. (I can’t believe how so many hi tech companies in the US expect their employees to work over weekends.)

But I do my best work when I’m under pressure (a habit from college, and probably not a good one), and that was enough to get me through these past few days. I flew into Orlando on Monday, met with our client on Tuesday to discuss requirements and expectations, worked non-stop from Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon to create network designs based on data gathered earlier on Tuesday, presented these designs on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, and just now got confirmation that our client has decided to definitely take us on as a partner. This was a make or break presentation, with their president of engineering in the audience, and thankfully nothing broke.

Although it’s a great feeling to have successfully presented your product and company to a client’s upper management in order to position yourself as a strategic partner and earn some big dollars, it’s not worth all the stress, time, and anxiety in my opinion. Probably I’m just not the type of person for this kind work. In any case, all this coffee isn’t good for you.