One of the reasons I don’t like having to chime in on company conference calls is I’m afraid that things just won’t come out of my mouth the way I intended. I feel I am too crass sometimes for my own good. And it’s not that I want to be, I just lack the skill to be diplomatic under pressure.
Just an hour ago during a conference call with a german company we do business with, there was a misunderstanding about when a product was going to launch. We said “..but we thought this was going to start today, like now…” and they responded with “.. but we were waiting on word from you to proceed and we didn’t get that word so now we have to wait until monday…”.
Our project manager did her version of putting her foot down and said in an take-charge tone “no monday is already too late, I can’t go back to my boss and tell him this is delayed for another week. we’ll have to go tomorrow..”. This is where it gets good. The german guy put his foot down and said “this was supposed to launch back in april and we’ve been plagued with one delay after another.. six months now.. I don’t want to discuss with you, the next 4 days.. “. I had to refrain from bursting out in laughter on the phone.
In me-speak this would have sounded more like “..we’ve already delayed this for a whole 6 months, bitch, and you want to throw a fit over 4 days?! don’t even…”
Amused
That’s too funny. I probably would have had to leave the room.
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