Last week I did a training gig for a great group of folks out on the west coast. I worked from the comfort of my home office, and presented all the material remotely.

The spec for training was pretty straightforward: start at 9am and end at 5pm for three days. The timezone was for Pacific Time, since the majority of the group resided in that timezone.

This week, I did a training for the same company but with a different group of people. Monday morning I woke up bright and early to an email wondering why I was a no-show to the training. Of course, I was barely out of bed and hadn't had my coffee yet. I'm an east coaster, so 9am Pacific Time would've been noon local time. Training didn't start for a few hours.

I quickly reviewed my spec, and I saw it plain as day: 9am to 5pm. What was I missing?

Central European Time. Or better known as 3am to east coasters. YIKES! I was a no show.

The moral of the story is that we need to start paying better attention. Too often do we get lost in the small details or we simply assume too much. For me, I assumed since the first training was Pacific Time Zone that the second one was Pacific Time Zone as well. Heck, I even checked the spec! But I only checked the times, and completely overlooked the different timezone. A 9 hour mistake.

Luckily for me, the client was understanding and we pushed the training another day.

Have you ever had a moment where your assumptions got the best of you? Minute details completely escaped you even though you were staring right at them? I'd love to hear about it! Leave me a comment and let us share the pain together.