iMag Slide Show

By Nicole Williams, WORKS Founder

Whether it's a computer failure or a public relations crisis, how your co-workers cope with tough situations can be pretty telling. Of course, they can learn a lot based on how you react, too. So when crisis strikes, are you cool as a cucumber or on the verge of a breakdown? Take this quiz and find out.

1. You're in the middle of a big project when a co-worker gives his two weeks' notice and leaves you holding the bag. You aren't sure how his part of the project works, so you: 

a. Put it on hold until they hire a replacement. No one said it was urgent.
b. Ask him to walk you through his work and take lots of notes before he leaves. If you pull this off, it could be a huge feather in your career cap!
c. Call his cell every day with questions long after he's gone. He said you could call if you needed anything, didn't he?

2. A vendor calls to say that your company's check has bounced and now payment is overdue (oops!). What's your next step?

a. Tell them it's not your problem and give them the number for accounts payable.
b. Apologize and assure them that you'll get the payment straightened out as quickly as possible.
c. Go chew out that guy in accounting. How dare he jeopardize your relationship with such a key vendor?

3. Your boss is speaking at a conference and brought you along to help represent the company. When her PowerPoint presentation won't open, you:

a. Sneak off to the ladies' room so you can check your BlackBerry in private. Let someone else deal with this mess.
b. Offer her your laptop, which has a copy of her presentation just in case.
c. Call the IT guy back at the office and beg him to coach you through a solution over the phone.

4. You arrive at work on Monday morning to discover that the Sunday paper ran a major cover story with some not-so-nice things to say about your CEO. How do you handle the damage?

a. Shrug it off and continue your morning routine as planned. This stuff usually blows over, so it's best not to make it into an even bigger deal.
b. You knew about the article in advance and you've already drafted a letter to the editor to rebut the rumors. Later you'll meet with your CEO and the rest of the communications team so you can come up with a unified response.
c. Immediately pick up the phone and demand a retraction. That reporter has some nerve!

5. A VIP shows up to a fund-raising event that you're running. Since she didn't RSVP, you didn't order her a Vegan meal. (She hasn't eaten anything that breathes in 10 years.) What do you do?

a. Explain that since she didn't respond to the invite, you don't have a non-meat meal for her. That'll teach her to follow directions.
b. Talk to the caterers to see what they suggest. Alternatively, you can call that Vegan restaurant across town and have someone pick up the order.
c. Offer to give her your salad and dessert. You're not that hungry anyway.

6. You discover that someone hacked into your company's network and your customers' privacy information may have been leaked (gulp). What's next?

a. Uh, maybe it's time for you to find a new job.
b. You call an emergency meeting with other departments and start thinking about how to notify customers.
c. You start frantically e-mailing co-workers to get their take on how this happened.

7. One of the interns passes out on the elevator. What do you do?

a. Keep working. She probably had too much to drink the night before and got dehydrated. Let the paramedics take care of it.
b. Help her off the elevator and call an ambulance.
c. Start thinking about all the obscure medical conditions she might have and wonder if they're contagious. Are you getting sick too?

8. You spilled teriyaki sauce on your pin-striped pants right before an important meeting. You:

a. Ignore it and keep eating. You'll need protein to get you through that meeting.
b. Use one of the Shout wipes in your desk to clean yourself up. Crisis averted!
c. Fake a migraine and leave work before the meeting.

9. You had a few too many martinis at happy hour and lost your lunch in front of your boss. What do you say when you see her the next day?

a. "G'morning." As far as you're concerned, denial is a river in Egypt.
b. "I'm so sorry you had to see that, and it won't happen again." Short and sweet.
c. "Oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. I'm, like, so embarrassed. I'm usually fine with two martinis, I don't know what happened." Overexplaining much?

10. Your office's e-mail server is down, and it could be several hours before it's fixed. What do you do?

a. Take the rest of the day off to go shopping. How are you supposed to get anything done if you can't get into your e-mail?
b. Make a few phone calls instead (thank goodness you have a Rolodex instead of saving all your contacts in Outlook). This is a good opportunity to make a more personal connection rather than relying on e-mail.
c. Get frustrated and eventually go home in a huff.

When something goes wrong, you tend to disengage and deny that anything is happening, leaving someone else to clean up the mess. Kudos on your composure, but maybe you could show a little more empathy when there's a crisis, especially if you were partially responsible. Delegating is great, but not when it's the blame you're handing off.

If something's not going well, you jump right in and fix it without getting caught up in the hysteria. You know when to step up and take responsibility, and you probably earned a Girl Scout badge in first aid, too. Keep up the good work, but don't feel like you have to fix everyone else's problems. Not everything needs your input.

You're so emotionally involved that you fall apart and lose your ability to think clearly at the first sign of a crisis. Your passion and commitment to the job are commendable, but you need to trust your own abilities and rely on a backup plan rather than breaking down. You'll get much more respect - and hold on to your sanity - if you take it down a notch.

Career expert and best selling author Nicole Williams is re-defining the world of work-making it glamorous, entertaining and relevant to modern women. Nicole founded WORKS by Nicole Williams in 2006 with the vision of building the first media and content company focused on career development specifically for the highly dynamic and powerful market of young professional women.

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