Thursday, August 18, 2005
What I received in my inbox this Friday...
One small request, no offence meant,
During the client interaction over the next week, please ensure that you have some mint after your smoke.
Just to avoid discomfort. :)
I'm sure you'll not mind but take this request positively.
Of course, I didn't mind. And well, I thanked the person for telling me beforehand.
What would you have done?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Dude I usually take a chewing gum after a smoke...I hate the after taste!
Now that's commonplace request or an etiquette thing, especially if you work indoors (in AC chambers presumably) and get anywhere less than 3 feet close (mouth to nostril) from your fellow (presumably non-smoking) colleagues/client/boss/senior/one-step-below-god.
How to tackle such requests? Good question.
1st step -> Analyse the intent. If it was to put you in your righful place of a subservient-nonconsequential-unimportance then its unfair and needs to be reported to human rights watchers.
If the person requesting is a female, simply abide (no 2nd thoughts).
If the person is only obliquely related to your line of work and you bump into him as frequently as the Indian legislators see the Parliament, then next time you meet him, tell him you are allergic to mint/gum or anything with a flavoring agent.
If the person is a show-off-all-my-importance-peer-who-has-spent-a-long-time-doing-the-same-thing-and-hence-feels-he-is-a-superior-by-virtue-of-experience, ask him to stop bugging you when you are engrossed in better things than who in the office has a foul mouth.
Lastly, fact that we are still evolving as office staff in India and trying to imbibe so called best practices from across the globe thereby sometimes making a mess of the rules/etiquette business altogether, should be seen as another blip on a radar where more important things take precedence over somebody's exaggeratedly moralistic remarks.
P.S - Work out the arithmetic as well. If after every smoke, you get into the habit of biting a gum as well, then by the time you are 50, you would have bitten gum worth a warehouse. And work out the costs of this added overhead. You might decide to quit smoking to get away from all the tante acts around (the foreplay and postacts) related to smoking.
he he... nice blog Mister BlackWhite :D
Thanks Shagman!!
:o)
He he! That's a good one. I would suggest soemthing stronger just simply takes their breath away....
Lolzz C'est la vie!!
Post a Comment