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30 August 2010

But How Do You Make Her Stay? And Listen To All You Say?

Friday Prayer (followed by lunch) is an important weekly event. The Prayer and the Lunch support each other in some sort of symbiotic time wasting relationship. The two are inseparable, which is why I call itPrayerFollowedByLunch.

I have already learnt not to schedule meetings during this period. I have also learnt not to rely on Maria for anything on a Friday afternoon. She may not be Muslim but she certainly avails herself of Islam's benefits.

If I need to do anything at this time I make sure it's not with locals. I have blocked time out from my calendar every week to ensure that I don't forget.

In other news ...

This month we have had a lot of people in the office, visiting from different countries. Most of them are working with me and they don't always have access to book our local meeting rooms or conference calls. I asked Maria to help certain people. Then over the last couple of weeks she expanded this catchment area. Maria is even offering her booking service to many of the self-sufficient local people as well; I don't know why.

For some reason Maria makes all these bookings under my name. She has access to my calendar so has decided to use it liberally. This means that *I* receive emails from people all around the world, asking if I can reschedule this or that call or giving reasons why they will or won't attend or asking me what the meeting is about and why they are invited. You gotta hand it to Maria ... ask her for a favour and the punishment is both swift and creative.

I've asked Maria to stop booking them under my name - to user her own name and and on whose behalf. This means that any questions will be emailed to Maria and not me. She promises she will do that, then seems to put the phone down and return to my calendar for more bookings.

Last Friday there was also a problem with my calendar and things were disappearing. Maria had booked a big meeting under my name but many people didn't receive the invitation.

I knew nothing of this until someone who sits nearby me said: "Hey Anthony - are you running the Friday prayer from now on?"\

To provde that this was my calendar's fault, and not hers, Maria sent a screenshot of my calendar to everyone in the group. For reasons of privacy Maria decided to block out details of my remaining meetings, except for one.

This is what she sent to a large group of people that I mostly did not know:


It came with an explanation which read "As you can see from Mr Anthony's calender, this meeting does not appear anywhere".

Of all the things to leave unblocked, why keep the one that makes me look ridiculous? The only think I can be sure of is that this was not deliberate.

I wrote her the following email:

Maria

Please don't send my calendar to people without my permission.

If I want people to have access, I will give it to them.

Thanks

Anthony

I didn't get a response but later we crossed paths in the lift area. She was leaving work for the day and (for whatever reason) dragging a large wheelie bag behind her. I greeted her as we walked past:

A: "Good night Maria. Have a nice weekend."

She turned around, stopped, smiled and said

M: "Mr Anthony your calendar has a problem."

A: "Yes I know. But please don't send copies of my calendar to people."

M: "But then if saying they didn't receive the invitation so I wanting to show them it isn't even in your calendar even when it was before so then the calendar is wrong and they don't think it's another thing."

I felt the swish of bullets as they whistled past my ears.

A: "Next time just tell them there is a problem ... no need for evidence. This is not a court room."

She nodded, quite satisfied with this. At the same time one of the other secretaries walked passed with a friendy "Maria! What is this bag? Where are you going? Somewhere?"

Maria's reply was a curt "Nowhere. Bye"

And with that she waved a perfunctory farewell to the Chairman of Fridayprayerfollowedbylunch, swivelled around on a heel and rattled off towards the exit.

I believe that she was going nowhere. I think the bag is what she uses to haul her sly grog.