"I avoid escalations as much as possible, but I have encountered problems that were impossible for me to solve. One year, I had a high-value project for the holidays. We only had five business days to turn marketing collateral around -- a minute-long promotional video. Our video editor submitted the first version, but the brief was clearly not followed; it was just way off. It took an entire workday to get this version, so I asked the editor if the edits could be made by the end of the next day. Keep in mind, we still needed time for the client to review the video and for us to work on their edit notes. I reviewed the brief thoroughly with the editor.
The next day, the video editor turned in the second version and it was still not up to par. At this point, I made the call to escalate because we were two workdays out from the deadline and the client had not seen anything. Thankfully, my senior project manager was able to tap a more experienced video editor who was freelancing by then. We forwarded the brief and they were able to make the necessary changes and spruced up the video. The client had minor feedback and we made the deadline by a hair."
