Thursday, January 14, 2010

Agenda is your head

Me : Hi, I just called to say there's a review meeting this Friday at 3 pm. Please attend.
Indian agency : Yes, sir, we will be there! Just tell us location.

Foreign agency : There's a meeting? This Friday?!
Me : (No, last friday. I called to circulate minutes orally)
Foreign agency : Who's calling for this meeting?
Me : (Your father and my father calling joint meeting of both families)
FA : What's to review? I mean review of what exactly?
Me : (Dey! If I tell to come, just come silently, man. Indian agency coming no? Like that)
FA : What's the agenda?
Me : (Agenda is your head. We want to see the wire in your head that is always asking agenda, agenda. Except when cash is paid against your invoice. That time agenda, bagenda all forget)
FA : Can we make it next month instead? I have something else lined up on that day.
Me : (What? Nextuuuuu monthaa? Your this playfulness only we like very much. Cancel that something else and come)
FA : We need to pull in some resources from abroad for this meeting.
Me : (Then you are what for? I'll call that guy directly only no? and I will pay prorata that much less after subtracting your personal time being charged)
FA : We can't be presenting that piece. That's well outside our scope of services.
Me : (First tell what is inside scope, machi. All pieces falling in the well outside your scope. Inside scope only arbitration for nonpayment of your fee, that also in neutral country)
FA : We can't be held responsible for that delay. We highlighted this possibility in the previous meeting and you should have taken action
Me : (Dey! We don't take action on highlighting and all, da dey. We take only postmortem action, that's our style)
FA : Our objective view is that this whole 10 week project will take about 6 months to complete
Me : (Who said 10 weeks, man? If you say 10 weeks to Indian agency it means full-fledged 2 year project. Instead, if you give realistic timeline to them, they will soon make it unrealistic)
FA : Could we at least do a "premeeting" to look at pending issues?
Me : (Pending issues in "premeeting" means then in "meeting" what will you do? Just drinking tea and leaving?)
FA : Could we do a conference call at least?
Me : (For last time, stop calling normal phone calls conference call. Minimum is 3 in India)
FA : We'll be there. Tell us the location.
Me : (This you could have asked at the beginning only no? And avoided this unnecessary "conference call" heehee)

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