You can plan a perfect schedule and still get chewed out because someone doesn’t like how it looks on paper.

So what would you do if your commander kept insisting your training calendars “weren’t full enough,” even though the schedule was packed and nothing more could fit? Would you push back? Or would you find a way to make it look fuller?

In the following story, one Army Lieutenant finds himself in this predicament. Here’s what he did.

Army Slide Show

I was a Lieutenant in the Army in the early 1990s. I was assigned to the training office at the staff level.

Every 3 months, my Sergeant-First Class (SFC) and I had to put together these slide shows for our Battalion Commander to present to our Division Commander (DC). This is how our unit received approval for its training budget.

This was before you could do a PowerPoint presentation.

The slide shows were printed on acetate, and we had several dry runs with our Colonel (COL) and the Co Commanders before the actual presentation. The company’s monthly calendars were included.

There was a big problem.

One time, our COL didn’t think the calendars looked full enough and insisted that more training be added.

The problem was that the calendars were actually full. It was just the way the calendars looked when printed.

After the COL harping on the calendars after the 3rd trial run, my SFC came up with a brilliant suggestion. (I was very lucky to work with him.) I implemented it, and the COL approved the slide show, and we proceeded with the briefing for the DC.

It was a really simple solution.

Later, one of the Co-Commanders and my direct supervisor asked how I solved the calendar issue.

I said that SFC suggested I increase the font to make everything look fuller, and that is what I did.

It worked perfectly and got the COL off the calendar issue.

Nice! That’s one way to make that issue go away.

Let’s see if the people over at Reddit have any similar stories to share.

Bet they’d have to really get creative sometimes.

Here’s someone who explains just how malicious it is.

Here’s someone who dealt with this a lot.

According to this person, it’s like fixing the margin in Word.

That was the best solution!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.