(Almost) Dropped the ball

I was just so busy that week. The main task was to prepare all the materials for the delegation of NATO officials headed to Beijing. I had spent a few weeks compiling all the policy work, all the background info, researching the history of NATO-China relations to lay the institutional memory down on paper.

NATO is more than any representative, it is a political organ that in many ways has its own political personality. Such a development is hardly a surprise, in fact it’s a necessary component for NATO’s interactions. NATO has a history, its has beliefs, it makes statements and makes future statements that are consistent with what it has said before. This gives the organization the traits of predictability, stability, transparency, and makes it more credible and dependable. If NATO was whatever any given person made it, it would be an anarchic organisation that no one would understand that no one would want to deal with.

So when I helped prepare the materials for our Ambassador, it was to help him assume that political personality, to speak on behalf of NATO and to respond on behalf of NATO. Such a task requires an enormous amount of information, and it can take the work of a dozen people to prep a single delegation to visit a country. And so when my boss issued me another task for a later date, I promptly “prioritized” it to the bottom.

It was a simple request, someone else was doing what I was doing, only it was to prepare the Secretary-General to visit Canada. I was asked to contribute our sections’ part of the NATO-personality.

I was having a relaxing Saturday. The night before the NATO interns had a going away party for Mark, a colleague on his way to Afghanistan. I had lunch with Mark and shot the breeze, and said my goodbyes before going home. I was all relaxed when I decided to open up google news to see if there was any headline worth reading:

“NATO Chief Visits Ottawa – Speaks with Prime Minister”

Its at this point that my heart sunk deep down into my chest, oh my god, I know that mission, I was supposed to provide inputs for that, I forgot!! I spent the entire Sunday brooding, knowing that I had earned myself a good lecturing. What bothered me was that I also do these requests for information from NATO’s various sections, and I know they slip out of people’s memory, which is why I remind people at least once, and often hound them multiple times.

I entered work early Monday morning and turned on my PC, I open the original email and print off the request. A quick glance tells me why I never got a reminder, the information requests for policy areas completely outside our section, mostly related to the Operations division. Knowing that nothing was required of me provides me with a sigh of relief, and a sufficient stinging to pay closer attention next time.