hey ah mais, I have to get this off my chest...
Arrgghh....I'm so irritated by this, I just have to get this off my chest! This happened earlier...
How to take down a phone message.
10am. We invited a listed company over to our office to make a corporate presentation to some of our dealers and fund managers. After saying "Hi, Hi", the management of the company and my boss went into the conference room. So I went back to my desk.
Phone rang. Our intern (from SMU - the general feedback is that students from SMU are quite different [better] than those from NUS, NTU) picked it up.
Intern: Hello?.....Yah,....yah....yah....Ok....Ok....Orh. Bye.
[Puts down phone and turns to me]
Intern: Erm, Boss wants you to look for this "Gee-nell's" (that's what it sounded) name card and number to remind her ah. Ginelle or Jean, or Gi Gi or something like that....
Me: Ginelle? (I dunno of any Ginelle....ok, maybe it's another name that both my boss and I know quite well - e.g. Giselle). Er...I dunno any Ginelle.
Intern: I dunno lah. Or Gi Gi or something like that.
Me: Er....Do you know which company is she from?
Intern: Er, I dunno. "P' dunno what or something like that. You got the list?
Me: [my own thoughts: Crap!! OMG!! You just put down the phone and you can't even remember what's the name or company? Then how to find? If can't catch the name properly, just clarify again on the phone lah! Relay this kind of message...how to find any name?] Er, if you dun tell me what's the company, how do I sift through Boss's name cards to find a name close to Ginelle or Jean/Gene or Gi Gi?
Colleauge 1: Er, try searching under "G"
Me: The "G" bit is the person's name lah. Need the company's name first mah.
Intern: You got the list?
Me: What list? You dun even know what name, got list, give you also for what?
So I just went over to Boss's desk, took out his chunck of name cards, went to the P section, gave that section to the intern and told him to find. Coz I dunno what's he talking about.
Meanwhile, I emailed Boss (Boss carries a Blackberry phone with access to his emails) and asked him whose name card was he looking for. While I was emailing Boss, Intern couldn't find the "G" name (obviously...duh). So he just stood - yes, stood...when everybody's seated, and looked really lost. Poor thing...but hey! You're 24 yrs old!! Surely you know how to do a simple thing like take down phone messages right??
Boss didn't reply email. So I called instead - coz if it's regarding the meeting, it gotta be urgent. Then told Boss to reply to my email.
The reply came back:-
It's not even anything to do with "G"!!
That debunks the myth that SMU grads are better.....
If it's work that you can't remember etc...that's fine. coz sometimes, the references at work is our own internal erm, reference. We know what we're referring to when we say "ABC". So Intern may not be used to it yet. But a plain simple phone message from Boss...??!! Also like that??!! *Faintz* Definitely NOT hiring him after his internship, which by the way, ends tomorrow.