Thursday, January 29, 2009

On time 1

Let’s call this person DEE

Dee is your friend. At times you view dee as your best friend. Of all the friends you have, dee is the one you can count on any day any time. Dee will not say you came too late or you should have asked for help earlier. Dee might show up late when you call at the last minute but dee will be there.

One day, you called dee and said “I need you to cover for me. I ought to be at a meeting at 8am but my flight’s been delayed and I cannot be there on time. I need you to attend the meeting and please be on time. Please be on time because we have to impress these guys at the meeting. If you get there on time and give a great presentation, they will assign the contract to our company. This could land us thousands of dollars. Please dee be there on time. You know we’ve aspired to land a deal like this and I am really counting on you to get the job done.”

Don’t worry; I got this. I got it covered. We will get the deal. Just relax, board your flight whenever you can and get here safe. Okay? Bye

The meeting commenced as it was supposed to be but DEE NEVER SHOWED UP.

React to this as if dee did it to you. what would you say or do?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I won't lie: my first instinct would be to be furious! Hopefully I'd think before I lash out, and this is what I'd do:

First, I'd try to find out whether DEE had a good reason for not showing up: there could have been an emergency or an obligation she could not get out of.

(If this was the case, and depending on how dire the situation was, she may have forgotten to contact you let you know that there has been a change in plans. That was not well done of her.)

(Yes, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.)

If you have determined that there was no reasonable reason for her not to show up, you should try to talk to her in person. Try to calmly tell her how important it was that she show up on time, and let her know how upset you are that she did this, and how much she let you down. She may be feeling so awful about the situation and might welcome an opportunity to apologize.

I think you have the right to be angry but try to show her grace and this incident could end up strengthening your friendship. If you notice that she's unapologetic or uncaring about the matter, you can then decide whether her close friendship is worth maintaining (maybe a little distance would be appropriate)...

I hope this is a hypothetical situation but I suspect it isn't. Sorry about that.

miz-cynic said...

i get easily psissed with these sort of things cos it takes me a lot to leave very important stuff to other pple's care...for me to now do tht and u now fuck up....ogbele o...i would be damn pissed....very pissed indeed!it'll take a while for me to forgive...but i will cos he had been good in the past

Kafo said...

I would think something is wrong, she has never failed me before so i would FIRST make sure that she is okay and that all is well and that she hasn't been abducted by aliens and then i'll take it from there


even if she just forgot it wasn't her responsiblity and she has been my friend in the past so i'll suck it up let her know i'm minorly ticked off and live life

Afrobabe said...

Kai, i would have vexeddddddddddddddddddd, hopefully I would have stopped vexing before I see DEE again....by which time I would just ask what happened and wait for an excuse that might make sense...

Nigerian Drama Queen said...

Well since it appears that Dee is the kinda person who is usually reliable...my honest first instinct would be to call her and find out what went wrong...

Writefreak said...

I'd be pissed, really pissed but i'd want to first know what happened to her..since she's always been there for me!

Rebirth said...

being angry will be an understatement but i wouldnt lash out on her just yet. i'd think she probably has a really good reason cuz based on her track record, she's never disappointed me before, so maybe something did go wrong.......
BUT if she has no reasonale explanation, then she better make one up cuz God help her

Anonymous said...

I'll go stark raving M-A-D!!!
But because I know she's my friend and she is rational...I hope...I'll have a 1-2-1 with her to know exactly what happened and let her know how I feel...if the excuse is plausible...fine I'll L-I-G(let it go) other wise...I'll mourn the loss of a good buddy and move on with life...
btw I'm loving the Jeremiah Gyang's song on your profile...I love that particular one to bits i.e Na ba ka

Anonymous said...

Personally my reaction would be on the reasons as to WHY Dee never turned up... Same way you missed a flight soemthing out of his control could have happened...