Ok, this one really gets to me. As a follow up to the previous “Don’t Piss Off the Assistant” post I put up back in February, I was just aggravated enough by another SYBM* trying to get in touch with TGIWF to stop in the middle of what I was doing and write this new post.
This latest SYBM has obviously not read my post or he skipped over Rule #2 - I DO control his schedule. His availability MAY be reflected by your attitude. Those that are unkind to me will NEVER get another meeting rescheduled for matters of urgency and his hours of operations just shrunk!
Do NOT expect to get any rearranging of calendar appointments when I contacted you OVER A MONTH ago to schedule a meeting, and you failed to respond on MULTIPLE occasions! When I follow up AGAIN on my own, now three weeks later from the last time I’ve heard from you, and I cannot materialize an appointment immediately, your response to an assistant should not be “That’s a month away. Does he have any time sooner than that!!” Interesting, since the day I most recently offered was less than 7 calendar days away. Yes, it’s a month away from the first time you requested this appointment because YOU NEVER RESPONDED! Not my emergency. It’s Tuesday, we’re booked for the rest of the week. Now had we responded with a “Shoot, that’s not a good day for me, are there other earlier options?” or maybe a “I can take that and if something sooner opens up, would you let me know? I’m really anxious to speak to him”, I may have thought in my little bitty assistant head ‘Mmm, this is a nice guy and he must have a hard time scheduling without an assistant of his own. Maybe I’ll see if TGIWF is up for cramming this guy in his already overbooked schedule?’ Instead, I respond with an appropriate clarification of the date in question being actually next week in case you may have misunderstood.
So now I have an appointment confirmed with the latest SYBM and I will be sending a calendar confirmation shortly to both Mr. SYBM and TGIWF for this appointment. Since I’m pretty sure TGIWF has my blog on his RSS feed, I wonder if he’ll put this post and the incoming appointment confirmation together to know whom I am blogging about? Oh-oh! That’s not a very good first impression!!
*SYBM = Strapping Young Business Man…and yes, I know businessman is one word, but there are SYBW out there, too.
HA! Just had a funny TGIWF moment with a email he sent. And I quote "800 numbers are so 90's"! This he says because the bleeding edge technology we get to play with at work has a new conferencing feature but it doesn't provide a toll-fee 800 number for the bridge! GASP!!
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