Friday, December 04, 2009
Happy birthday
I have to write about this - I need to get it out of my system.
Most of us make friends among the people we work with. As a consultant, a lot of the people I work with, therefore some of my work friends, are clients; now ex-clients. I have been to two weddings and a 50th birthday in the recent past of ex-clients.
This post is about a specific client, who I invited to my 40th, but he forgot to come. When we noticed during lunch that his and his wife's places were empty, I called him, and he rushed over with his 2 year old, sans wife, slightly apologetic. I was a bit miffed that he hadn't even bothered to remember, and barely bothered to apologise when he got here, but put it down to general slackness.
I just met him for a drink this afternoon, and he presented me with my birthday present. This is where the fun really starts.
The present consisted of three books. One of the books - a restaurant guide - had his company logo on the front (he works for one of SA's biggest companies): it is clearly a freebie to dish out to clients. I noticed this, but let it slide. As we were talking about one of the others, he picked it up to flick through it, then noticed a page glued inside the front cover, which he proceeded to tear out carefully: "oops, I'll just remove this". Clearly the page bore the legend "with the compliments of XX ltd.", and was a present he had received from some other company. So of the three books, one he had bought, and two were things he had lying around his office. He didn't seem to be particularly embarrassed by the whole affair. The more I think about it, the sadder it seems.
I'm not cross with him; perhaps I should be. I'm bloody pissed off with myself for bothering to invite him to my 40th, which was otherwise full of people who really wanted to be there, as far as I could tell. Meanwhile he's banging on about his latest property ventures, and I reckon his wife has had a face lift, so he's not exactly skint. Where to from here?!?
Most of us make friends among the people we work with. As a consultant, a lot of the people I work with, therefore some of my work friends, are clients; now ex-clients. I have been to two weddings and a 50th birthday in the recent past of ex-clients.
This post is about a specific client, who I invited to my 40th, but he forgot to come. When we noticed during lunch that his and his wife's places were empty, I called him, and he rushed over with his 2 year old, sans wife, slightly apologetic. I was a bit miffed that he hadn't even bothered to remember, and barely bothered to apologise when he got here, but put it down to general slackness.
I just met him for a drink this afternoon, and he presented me with my birthday present. This is where the fun really starts.
The present consisted of three books. One of the books - a restaurant guide - had his company logo on the front (he works for one of SA's biggest companies): it is clearly a freebie to dish out to clients. I noticed this, but let it slide. As we were talking about one of the others, he picked it up to flick through it, then noticed a page glued inside the front cover, which he proceeded to tear out carefully: "oops, I'll just remove this". Clearly the page bore the legend "with the compliments of XX ltd.", and was a present he had received from some other company. So of the three books, one he had bought, and two were things he had lying around his office. He didn't seem to be particularly embarrassed by the whole affair. The more I think about it, the sadder it seems.
I'm not cross with him; perhaps I should be. I'm bloody pissed off with myself for bothering to invite him to my 40th, which was otherwise full of people who really wanted to be there, as far as I could tell. Meanwhile he's banging on about his latest property ventures, and I reckon his wife has had a face lift, so he's not exactly skint. Where to from here?!?
