Worst week at work
Have you ever had one of those weeks at work that are just unbelievably bad? One thing after another keeps going wrong?

I had one of those weeks in my first job out of university, organising events for an international genetics organisation. On paper, dream job. I got to work in Mexico, living in top hotels with private beaches. In reality, not so great. The following things happened in the same week (which can be verified by independent sources!):

1. The day before we left for Mexico, the SARS outbreak occurred. As about 40 speakers were coming from China and Canada (and were now banned from travelling), we had less than 24 hours to find 40 replacement speakers. Not the easiest thing in the world, being as there aren't that many experts on the human genome. Ended up having to get some poor Mexican undergraduates to present at an international conference in their second language.

2. A hurricane. To note how truly annoying this was, it was APRIL. As in, the dry season. Hadn't rained for 180 days and we had arranged for the opening conference dinner to be held on the beach at the hotel's private lagoon. We had just set up tables etc for 650 people when the hurricane changed direction and the edge hit Cancun. Really fun trying to move in 650 chairs and tables when the winds of hell are blowing sand and branches into your face.

We had to open the bar for the delegates whilst we reorganised the dinner inside - cost us over $10,000 in drinks! It was worth it to see the scientists dancing on tables to a mariachi band, though...

3. If that wasn't bad enough, my boss ran to me in an absolute panic the next afternoon. One of our main speakers, the head of the Ethics committee, had gone scuba diving despite being asthmatic. Needless to say, she had an attack underwater and drowned. We had a jolly afternoon identifying her body, and trying to get her shipped back to the US before bodysnatchers took her organs - apparently a very real problem in that area! Breaking the news to the conference was a real corker.

4. Finally, the icing on the cake: my bank cards were stolen and £3,500 was stolen from my account whilst I was out there - £3,500 of the deposit for my house, which I was buying the following week.

Despite all this, I still love Mexico and would go back! Even the thieves were kinda nice - they used my money to buy a load of clothes from Mothercare and some school books for their kids!

So, what other work weeks from hell have you had?
(missloki, Mon 19 Jan 2009, 20:47, Reply)