The Deck, the Deadline and the Personal Gmail
Four Class X students on a two-week work-based learning placement at a Kolkata ITeS firm are asked to prepare a six-page process document and a ten-slide deck for a client review on Friday at 4 p.m. Rup is the best slide designer but missed Tuesday's internal draft deadline and has not replied to messages. Sana verified the data but says nothing in team meetings and has twice been left out of decisions. The other two did most of the writing and want to email the supervisor a complaint naming Rup as 'irresponsible'. On Thursday, Rup emails the near-final deck from a personal Gmail address because the office mail blocked the 28 MB attachment. The supervisor asks the team to send a status note by 2 p.m. Friday.
1. Should the team send the complaint email as drafted? What should they do instead, and why?
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Do not send it as drafted. It labels a person and an intent - 'irresponsible' - which forces the supervisor to judge personalities rather than work. It also arrives without a proposed solution, so it reads as a grievance, not a status report.
The real problem is a missed internal deadline with no visibility - a coordination issue the team can own first.
Instead:
- Speak to Rup privately and specifically: describe the behaviour and its effect ('the Tuesday draft did not arrive, so we could not test the slides'), ask what happened, and agree a concrete new checkpoint.
- Keep Sana in the decision loop; excluding her again repeats the pattern the team is complaining about.
- If the Friday deadline is genuinely at risk, tell the supervisor as a risk with a request for help - who does what, by when - not as a character report.
Escalation is appropriate; the framing and the private first step are what make it professional.
2. Assess the personal Gmail and the blocked 28 MB attachment. What should happen now, and what should have happened instead?
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The personal Gmail is the serious issue, not the blocked attachment. Client material sent to a consumer mailbox leaves the firm's control, may breach the client's confidentiality clause and the firm's IT policy, and sits there indefinitely.
Now: tell the supervisor promptly rather than hoping it goes unnoticed; delete the message from the personal account and ask Rup to do the same; move the file into the firm's approved storage and share a link with view-only or expiry permissions; log the incident.
Instead: the deck should have gone through the approved storage link from the start. For the blocked attachment, the correct options are a shared link, splitting the deck, or compressing images - never switching to a personal channel. A 28 MB deck is mostly images; compressing them is usually the fastest legitimate fix. If the client insists on email, send from the office account with a link, not an attachment.
3. Draft the content of the 2 p.m. status note. What must be included, what must be left out, and who should receive it?
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Audience: the supervisor, with all four team members copied - including Sana, so the note does not repeat the exclusion.
Include:
- Current status: what is complete in the document and the deck, and who holds each part.
- The specific risk and its impact on the 4 p.m. review.
- What has already been done: link shared, draft reviewed, images compressed.
- What is needed from the supervisor, with a decision and a time.
- Named owner and time for each remaining item.
- One line on the confidentiality incident if it has not already been reported through the proper channel.
Leave out: blame, guesses about Rup's motives, and re-litigating Tuesday.
Close with a next update time, for example 3 p.m., so the supervisor is not left guessing. Factual, forward-looking, short - a status note that a manager can act on in thirty seconds.