When you're in the sh*t, use paper Monday, October 29, 2007
This is not a toilet story.
I traipsed across London this afternoon for a meeting with some executives at a big record label (it's interesting how they are all congregated around Hammersmith). And no, they weren't looking to launch my music career.
When I got there, I was greeted by reception puzzled stares as they rang round trying to locate my host. Someone would be down for me shortly they advise and asked me to wait on the comfy sofas in the company of big screen playing music videos.
5 minutes later a harried PA appears to say that IT problems had caused the Outlook calendar entries of her boss and some other execs to be wiped at the end of last week with the result that she had been trying to recreate the calendar from email trails, whilst having spent most of the day apologising to people that were turning up for meetings that they were now unaware of, including mine.
Due to a busy day, I hadn't followed my normal practice of sending a confirming email in the morning to check all was proceeding as scheduled. But I had also been unlucky that my correspondence with her to arrange the meeting was tucked away in her blackberry which she hadn't checked and which didn't synch with their corporate email, with the result she hadn't spotted it.
Sadly, my host had now been dragged off into a session with the CEO and so now wasn't available to see me. Some guests had evidently been less calm about this screw-up than I was, including some from a "Mickey Mouse" organisation.
Her response to the "crisis" - she was going to revert to operating a paper diary in parallel, rather than face this again!
posted by John Wilson @ 11:56 PM Permanent Link
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