Management School
You'd think that being in a management school trains the "bright young minds" of our nation to be good businessmen. You'd think that with our "broad-based curriculum", us students will be able to tackle the hijinks of the workplace. If that's the case, we're in a very sorry state. I present to you exhibits A and B.
Exhibit A
Before the summer holidays, I had arranged a meeting with this person to discuss the handing over of an activity. Unfortunately, it was very close to the exams, so we put it off till the summer holidays. However, he got an internship at Thailand (Ny's motherland), so we had to put it off once again.
Before school started, I emailed him to pin down a date we could meet up. There was no reply. At least not until school started, when he asked if I'd be free later that day, and that he'd call me.
He didn't respond to my reply that I'll be available after lunch. No email, no calls. He didn't even reply to my SMS providing him my location if he wanted to look for me. When I got tired of waiting for him, I went home, only to see his reply at 11pm saying that he had lessons on from 12pm onwards. You'd expect that he'd have replied with that fact earlier.
The events panned out in an eerily similar fashion the next day. He told me that he'd call, but never got down to doing so. I stayed back in school another day for no apparent reason.
This is a management school we're in. They teach you things like crafting emails to request and reject clients. They teach you how to dress to impress, how to ace that interview and how to give suave and slick presentations. If they expect us to go through so much trouble for our clients, we should also treat our peers and colleagues with some amount of respect right? Who likes working with someone who doesn't keep to a promised call, someone who can't even shoot off a quick email reply that he'd be busy that day so we'd have to reschedule. He isn't the only busy person around.
Exhibit B
I worked with this person to claim money from his CCA. His club sent people down for our event to have some fun. However, their members weren't willing to pay entry fees and we made an arrangement with their club president to buy tickets on credit. I had to collect the accounts receivable from him as he's the club's financial controller.
I passed him the receipts for the tickets to expedite the admin he needed to do on his side. When doing so, I also told him which receipts were for amounts already paid, and which were for amounts that I need him to pay me.
He didn't take note of all that. About a month later, he sent an email asking me how much exactly his club owes our club. "Hey, was it $60 I'll need to claim for you guys?" As I had mentioned so many times previously in my emails to him, his club was in $102 of debt to us. Did he bother checking those emails out? Apparently not. But never mind, I replied him once again with a breakdown of how his club owes us $102.
Two weeks later, I received a cheque from him for - wait for it - $60. Okay, I'm still calm, so I ask him, "So when can I expect the rest of it? 42 dollars?" I even helpfully attached the email reply I mentioned above. He still had the cheek to reply "Huh? We owe you more than that? Where does the $42 come from?"
We're taught to be businessmen. And in businesses, money is everything. You think your suppliers will be patient with you if you keep asking them how much you owe them? You think they'll be willing to work with you if you short-change them? Do you expect them to read your emails for you?
So there you go: two samples of Singapore's very bright future. -Jimmy
Exhibit A
Before the summer holidays, I had arranged a meeting with this person to discuss the handing over of an activity. Unfortunately, it was very close to the exams, so we put it off till the summer holidays. However, he got an internship at Thailand (Ny's motherland), so we had to put it off once again.
Before school started, I emailed him to pin down a date we could meet up. There was no reply. At least not until school started, when he asked if I'd be free later that day, and that he'd call me.
He didn't respond to my reply that I'll be available after lunch. No email, no calls. He didn't even reply to my SMS providing him my location if he wanted to look for me. When I got tired of waiting for him, I went home, only to see his reply at 11pm saying that he had lessons on from 12pm onwards. You'd expect that he'd have replied with that fact earlier.
The events panned out in an eerily similar fashion the next day. He told me that he'd call, but never got down to doing so. I stayed back in school another day for no apparent reason.
This is a management school we're in. They teach you things like crafting emails to request and reject clients. They teach you how to dress to impress, how to ace that interview and how to give suave and slick presentations. If they expect us to go through so much trouble for our clients, we should also treat our peers and colleagues with some amount of respect right? Who likes working with someone who doesn't keep to a promised call, someone who can't even shoot off a quick email reply that he'd be busy that day so we'd have to reschedule. He isn't the only busy person around.
Exhibit B
I worked with this person to claim money from his CCA. His club sent people down for our event to have some fun. However, their members weren't willing to pay entry fees and we made an arrangement with their club president to buy tickets on credit. I had to collect the accounts receivable from him as he's the club's financial controller.
I passed him the receipts for the tickets to expedite the admin he needed to do on his side. When doing so, I also told him which receipts were for amounts already paid, and which were for amounts that I need him to pay me.
He didn't take note of all that. About a month later, he sent an email asking me how much exactly his club owes our club. "Hey, was it $60 I'll need to claim for you guys?" As I had mentioned so many times previously in my emails to him, his club was in $102 of debt to us. Did he bother checking those emails out? Apparently not. But never mind, I replied him once again with a breakdown of how his club owes us $102.
Two weeks later, I received a cheque from him for - wait for it - $60. Okay, I'm still calm, so I ask him, "So when can I expect the rest of it? 42 dollars?" I even helpfully attached the email reply I mentioned above. He still had the cheek to reply "Huh? We owe you more than that? Where does the $42 come from?"
We're taught to be businessmen. And in businesses, money is everything. You think your suppliers will be patient with you if you keep asking them how much you owe them? You think they'll be willing to work with you if you short-change them? Do you expect them to read your emails for you?
So there you go: two samples of Singapore's very bright future. -Jimmy
posted by Jimmy at 10:46 PM
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