I've managed my division's trade shows for years, making a name for myself as the "Trade Show Guru." So when Sonoco Products Co. corporate tapped me last year to oversee a booth for PackExpo that would feature all of the company's divisions, I jumped at the chance to show off my skills and experience. Unfortunately, one rookie mistake nearly tarnished my reputation.

I was on site for installation, and two days before the show opened I had the booth pretty much squared away. Show management announced that the floors needed to be cleared to lay the aisle carpeting, so I took one last peek inside my crate to make sure there was nothing left. Seeing only a piece of packing material at the bottom, I put the lock on the crate, slapped an empty sticker on it, and watched it get whisked away to the boneyard with 2,015 other exhibitors' shipping containers.

When the team arrived the next afternoon to arrange our products, one of my colleagues asked where the graphic was for her division's new flexible printing technology, which was the highlight of its offerings. After she started to describe the cardboard sleeve that it was shipped in, I knew exactly where it was. It was the "packing material" lying in the bottom of my wooden crate.

Not letting her in on my snafu, I hustled to the boneyard and pleaded my case to the union boss. He explained that I needed a service ticket from show services before he could help. So I beelined it to the show services desk, where a skeptical rep said it could take all night to find my crate, and I had to provide a dollar figure for what I was willing to pay for laborers to scour the boneyard on my behalf before the search was called off. My budget didn't allow for much deviation, so I approved two hours of search time, took my service ticket receipt back to the union boss, provided all the details I could about my container, and accompanied him into the boneyard.

The sea of crates was stacked three high and five deep. Incredulous forklift drivers scoffed at me when they learned of my error, yet it didn't deter me from looking. We were 15 minutes into the hunt when the union boss started scaling the heap of containers, jumping from one level to another. I stayed safely on the ground and peered into every crack and crevice. Finally, I glimpsed what could have been a sliver of my company's logo on a crate three rows in and two rows up. I started yelling "I think I found it!" Sure enough, when a driver moved a few crates, there it was. The union boss cracked open the container and pulled out the wayward graphic in its cardboard sleeve, which at that point looked to me like the Holy Grail.

When he climbed down, I hugged the union boss right there. He was caught a bit off guard, but the relief I had after recovering the lost package was immeasurable. I thanked him and the driver for their help and literally skipped back to my booth where I casually handed the graphic to my team member, who was none the wiser about where I'd been the past hour.