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Updated September 2026: in September 2019 I returned from a long vacation nervous about a difficult opportunity I had left in a bad state, and about my promotion, only to find a teammate had already been assigned and had sent a version. I have rewritten it into advice for returning from leave when someone else covered your work.

Before my vacation, an opportunity had gone badly and I worried about its effect on my promotion, especially as letters were due and I had a top rating from the previous year. On my first day back I went through my old emails and found another team member had been assigned to support it and had already shared a version. My first job was to find out what had changed.

What should you do first when someone covered for you?

Talk to them before you touch the work. Ask what they changed, what the client or onsite team said, and what is still open. Read the thread after that conversation, not before; the person who covered can tell you in ten minutes what would take an hour to piece together from emails.

Should you take the work back?

Ask your manager rather than assuming. Sometimes the cover person should carry on, especially if they now have the latest context and the client relationship. Sometimes it should come back to you. Either is fine, as long as everyone, including the client-facing team, knows who owns it.

How do you thank the person who covered?

Specifically, and where your manager can see it. A short email noting what they handled and how it helped is worth more than a quick thank-you in passing. People remember who acknowledged their extra effort, and it makes the next cover arrangement easier.

What if you left the work in a bad state?

Own it briefly, then focus on the fix. Tell your manager what went wrong before you left and what you would do differently. A clear, factual account usually matters more at review time than the incident itself.

Should you worry about your promotion?

One difficult opportunity rarely outweighs a year's record, especially a top-rated one. Ratings and promotions are usually decided on the whole year. If you are concerned, ask your manager directly whether the incident affects your case, rather than spending days guessing.

How do you make the next leave easier?

Leave a handover note, name a cover person with their agreement, and tell stakeholders who to contact. Coming back to a clear record of what happened while you were away makes the first day back far calmer.

Keep reading

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• Got the Top Rating? How to Use It at Hike Time
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Updated September 2026: in July 2019 I received an escalation from my manager about review comments supposedly not addressed, after a call I thought had ended smoothly with a clean handoff to onsite. I have rewritten it into advice on handling escalations about unaddressed comments.

The escalation email surprised me: the call had gone well and the handoff to the onsite team was done. My manager had told me to own the opportunity because he could not support it, so I did not understand how he had become involved. I closed my laptop and decided to discuss it in person the next day. When he arrived, he asked what the delivery lead's comments were and why they had not been addressed. I explained we had addressed as many as possible and asked the onsite team to handle the rest.

Why do "unaddressed comments" escalations happen?

Usually because there is no shared record of which comments were accepted, which were handled and which were deliberately passed to someone else. The reviewer sees their comment missing from the next version and assumes it was ignored. Without a tracker, it is one person's memory against another's.

How do you track review comments?

• Record each comment with who made it and when.
• Mark its status: done, partly done, passed to another team, or not accepted with a reason.
• Share the tracker with the reviewer when you send the new version.

A simple table in the email is enough. It turns "why wasn't this addressed?" into a line the reviewer can already see.

Should you respond to an escalation immediately?

Not if you are angry. Waiting until the next day, as I did, was reasonable. But send a brief acknowledgement that evening, such as "Noted; I will go through the comments with you tomorrow morning", so silence is not read as avoidance.

How do you explain what happened?

With the tracker or, if there was none, a quick reconstruction: which comments were addressed, which were passed to onsite and why. Keep it about the comments, not about who escalated. Then agree how comments will be tracked on the rest of the opportunity.

What if your manager was not supposed to be involved?

Ask how the concern reached them and whether they want to be kept informed from now on. If you were told to own the opportunity, clarify what ownership means, including whether reviewers can escalate to your manager or should come to you first.

Keep reading

• Back From Leave After Someone Covered Your Work
• Finishing a Proposal Deck on a Tight Deadline
• Running a Client Review Call So Changes Surface Early

Updated September 2026: in May 2019 I learned I had received the top rating for the second year running, and colleagues and former teammates told me promotion was surely next. I have rewritten it into advice on making the most of a top rating at hike and promotion time.

Hearing about my rating, I could hardly contain my excitement. A colleague who messaged me could not believe it was the second year in a row, and former teammates wrote to congratulate me. By the company's norms, even one top rating was supposed to lead to promotion; two in a row looked like a clear route.

Does a top rating guarantee promotion?

Not by itself. Promotions usually depend on a mix of rating, tenure, available budget, open positions at the next grade and a manager's recommendation. Unwritten norms, like "one top rating means promotion", are often true on average but not guaranteed for any individual. Confirm what the formal criteria are rather than relying on what colleagues say.

What should you do after hearing your rating?

• Thank your manager and ask directly whether you are being put forward for promotion this cycle.
• Ask about timing: when promotion letters are issued and whether anything else is needed from you.
• Get your achievements written down, so your manager has them if they need to argue your case.
• Keep celebrations modest within your team, where ratings are compared.

How can a top rating improve your hike?

Many companies link increments to ratings through a fixed band, but managers sometimes have discretion within it. A top rating strengthens a request to be placed at the upper end. If promotion is delayed, ask whether a larger increment or a one-time bonus can recognise the rating in the meantime.

What if the promotion does not come?

Ask for the specific reason and what would change it by the next cycle, in writing. Two top ratings without promotion is a strong basis for that conversation. If the answer is vague, it is also a strong basis for exploring the market, where consistent top ratings carry weight in interviews.

Should you share your rating with others?

Friends and former teammates, as in my case, can be good sounding boards. Within your current team, be careful. Ratings are often calibrated against each other, and what feels like good news for you can feel different to someone who did not get the same outcome.

Keep reading

• Back From Leave After Someone Covered Your Work
• Thinking of Switching Jobs? Manager, Pay and Growth
• Running a Client Review Call So Changes Surface Early

Updated September 2026: this 2019 post described closing a tight-deadline proposal deck: more inputs arriving on the morning call, a day of chasing delivery teams, and finishing early enough to ask the delivery manager to join the final call and close it. I have rewritten it into advice on finishing a deck under deadline pressure.

The morning call brought no progress from others and a few more inputs to add. I was angry, but kept the call calm and went to the office to finish. I spent the day calling several delivery people for feedback and expected outcomes, juggling actions in parallel. Because most of the deck was done early and already reviewed by the accounts team, I asked the delivery manager to join the evening call so we could close it that day. Only the commercial section remained.

Why do tight-deadline decks keep growing?

Because each reviewer adds something and nobody removes anything. Late inputs arrive because people see the deck for the first time near the deadline. The work expands until someone with authority says "this is final".

How do you plan backwards from the deadline?

• Fix the final call first: the time the deck must be approved, and who must attend to approve it.
• Set a content cut-off a few hours before it, after which only corrections go in.
• Book reviews early, so the accounts team and delivery see the deck before the final day, not during it.
• Separate the commercial section, which usually needs different approvers and often lags.

How do you manage several inputs at once?

Keep one tracker: each input, who owes it, when it is due and whether it is in. Call people rather than waiting on email when time is short. A two-minute call often gets an answer that an email thread takes a day to produce.

Why get the decision-maker on the final call?

Because a deck closes only when someone with authority accepts it. Asking the delivery manager to attend, as I did, turned the last call from another review round into a sign-off. Without them, the likely outcome is "looks good, one more change".

What should you do with the parts still open?

Name them and give each an owner and time. "Commercials pending with finance, due by 11 am tomorrow" lets everyone else stop working on the deck. An unnamed open item keeps the whole team on standby.

Planning backwards from that final call, and finishing the core early, was what made the deadline achievable that day. It is a method that works on almost every rushed deck.

Keep reading

• Running a Client Review Call So Changes Surface Early
• When Your Manager Assumes Old Slides Can Be Reused
• Last-Minute Changes Before Submission: What to Do