Another Three Blunders

From late last week till the end of this week, I have ‘successfully’ made three blunders. Two of them happened this week. Considering that it’s a 5-day work week for me this week, 2 is still quite enough to shake me up a bit.

The overall lesson to learn is - Not to assume that everything will go right at every arranged meeting with external parties. ALWAYS CLARIFY and if possible, DOUBLE CLARIFY.

Different Meeting Agenda

One of my job tasks is to establish contact and work out a mutual agreement of collaboration effort with our local education institutions. Last week, I arranged for a meeting with my Dept Head, together with one education institution.

It turned out that both sides began speaking of different agendas and it soon became awkward because of it became clear that this miscommunication had resulted in this meeting with the wrong people.

Believe me, it was awkward and of the 5 people from that education institution that was present at the meeting, all 5 of them were not the right people whom my Dept Head and I were supposed to be talking to.

It was embarrassing, but thankfully both sides were gracious to link each other to the right people for the next meeting. Needless to say, I got a scolding from my Dept Head in the taxi, until even the taxi driver looked shaken.

Wrong Marking of Calendar

This Thursday, I brought two of the new dept staff along with me for a meeting with a company. It turned out that I had noted the wrong date in my MS Outlook calendar! The actual meeting date was the next day!

It was so embarrassing coz the two new staff was surprised and laughing that such a mistake was even possible! Plus the reception staff at that company looked at me with this weird look… obviously surprised that I had come down one day early and it turned out that their business manager was out of the office!

Thankfully the taxi fare was claimable, but I really made a fool of myself in front of the two new dept staff. Sigh… and guess what? My Dept Head was supposed to come along for the meeting too, but he couldn’t make it in the end. Phew! It would be even worse if he had actually come with us! Oh no…

Wrong Time, Wrong People

On Friday, I went down to this same company again with one new staff. Thankfully, my Dept Head was busy, so he didn’t come. It wasn’t really my fault this time round, but it was miscommunication once again.

This company’s business manager was the one who arranged for the meeting with the education institution’s lecturers who do not even know what their purpose of coming down! In the end, it was just a look around for these lecturers before having to go back to discuss further among themselves! Then what for ask me to come down?!

In addition, these lecturers came 30 minutes earlier than planned and when I and my team mate reached the office, their meeting with the company business manager was almost over! I was shocked! What kind of arrangement is this?! Another wasted trip! And it was so embarrassing because I didn’t even have the time to talk more with the lecturers because they were about to leave the place!

To make matters worse, I had to ask this business manager to share with me right from the beginning about what had been discussed earlier, and this fella couldn’t even tell me much! Just said that it’s too early to talk about details! Then why in the world did I waste my time and money to come all the way down to meet with you? And my meeting with him only lasted 10 minutes! That’s even shorter than the taxi ride to his office! And there he was looking and speaking so nonchalantly, as if it isn’t a big deal to him at all.

Once again, I felt so embarrassed especially with my new staff next to me who had been assigned under my team. What is wrong with this guy?! Terrible! Next time I will just arrange for my own meetings with the lecturers themselves. Argh!