Monday, January 19, 2009
Talking to Americans
Last night I was at a former colleague's wedding dinner and the guest next to me complained about the American corpoation he was working for.
He said the guys at their New York head office always scheduled conference calls without regard for what time it would be in other parts of the world. This meant he frequently had to come back to the office to attend calls between 10pm and 2am Singapore time. In addition, the New York guys were frequently condescending when talking to him. He said they tended to treat anyone in an Asian office as coming from a technologically backward and unsophisticated third world country. He sounded pretty depressed and ended by saying that if it weren't for the difficult job market, he would be seriously thinking about resigning.
While I sympathised with his plight, I couldn't help wondering just how much those guys in New York knew about Singapore? He could try to have a little fun with them to see how much nonsense they would believe. If he really decides to resign, I would suggest he try the following:
1) Halfway through a conference call, he should interrupt everyone and say, "Sorry guys, I'm going to have to disconnect. There's a hole in the fence between our office and the neighbouring farm. The chickens have now found their way through the hole and are making a mess of the office. There are feathers everywhere as the rooster is chasing one of the hens. I'm going to have to call the farmer to get his chickens out of here and mend the fence together with him."
2) Pretend he didn't receive an important email and when asked why not, he should reply, "Sorry guys, there's a real computer shortage in this part of the world. There are 6 of us in this office sharing 1 computer and we're only allowed to switch it on for 4 hours a day to preserve its lifespan. I'll get that email when I'm scheduled to have access to the computer again next Monday afternoon."
3) Completely miss a conference call and when asked about that, he should explain, "Sorry guys, the children who run on the treadmills that power the phone company here got sent to school and all phone lines shut down for 2 days until the phone company could find new 8 year olds to run on the treadmills."
4) Call in half an hour late into a conference call and explain, "Sorry guys, someone forgot to move the sundial in our office today so everyone's schedule got thrown off by 30 minutes."
If you're sick of some ignorant pompous ass in some foreign head office, you're welcome to try any of the above excuses provided you tell me the result in a comment to this post.
Last night I was at a former colleague's wedding dinner and the guest next to me complained about the American corpoation he was working for.
He said the guys at their New York head office always scheduled conference calls without regard for what time it would be in other parts of the world. This meant he frequently had to come back to the office to attend calls between 10pm and 2am Singapore time. In addition, the New York guys were frequently condescending when talking to him. He said they tended to treat anyone in an Asian office as coming from a technologically backward and unsophisticated third world country. He sounded pretty depressed and ended by saying that if it weren't for the difficult job market, he would be seriously thinking about resigning.
While I sympathised with his plight, I couldn't help wondering just how much those guys in New York knew about Singapore? He could try to have a little fun with them to see how much nonsense they would believe. If he really decides to resign, I would suggest he try the following:
1) Halfway through a conference call, he should interrupt everyone and say, "Sorry guys, I'm going to have to disconnect. There's a hole in the fence between our office and the neighbouring farm. The chickens have now found their way through the hole and are making a mess of the office. There are feathers everywhere as the rooster is chasing one of the hens. I'm going to have to call the farmer to get his chickens out of here and mend the fence together with him."
2) Pretend he didn't receive an important email and when asked why not, he should reply, "Sorry guys, there's a real computer shortage in this part of the world. There are 6 of us in this office sharing 1 computer and we're only allowed to switch it on for 4 hours a day to preserve its lifespan. I'll get that email when I'm scheduled to have access to the computer again next Monday afternoon."
3) Completely miss a conference call and when asked about that, he should explain, "Sorry guys, the children who run on the treadmills that power the phone company here got sent to school and all phone lines shut down for 2 days until the phone company could find new 8 year olds to run on the treadmills."
4) Call in half an hour late into a conference call and explain, "Sorry guys, someone forgot to move the sundial in our office today so everyone's schedule got thrown off by 30 minutes."
If you're sick of some ignorant pompous ass in some foreign head office, you're welcome to try any of the above excuses provided you tell me the result in a comment to this post.
# posted by Fore! @ 1:21 PM 
