The Party, Hosts and Guests

My company is having a new building open to the employees. Its a bit further out of B'lore which means it adds hours to your commuting time. We have an inauguration party and we are the hosts. The Admin team decided to inform all of us who work at what's called Company R&D unit/BLR just during the week on which the "Grand Party" is scheduled. The cranky part was they informed the guests coming from various units of my Company around India and nearby a month earlier (which meant we had the info in our Gossip networks already.)

Finally, after almost screaming :Hell: they sent out an invitation for family (spouse and kids). Then there's a mail in "Red", acidic as it might look, saying "Note: Friends, Relatives and Parents Not Allowed." The chap who manages the Admin department, probably bad at communication didn't really catch the impact. Finally a good number of folks sent e-mails and phone calls to the Corporate HR HQ quoting this very line which in Indian cultural terms meant disrespect to Parents. The worst part was this guy actually told folk including me that it was company policy not to allow Parents to parties. That kind of cut the attendance to less than 30% of the local guys'n gals who'll actually be moving to the new facility.

Then the Admin chap who sent the original message instructs his junior to send another mail saying families and parents allowed. That line sounds hilarious as they haven't really given an engineering specification on who's family/parents are allowed. I guess we're in for a good flame war in Office.

This is just one example of how a single person messing up communication can spoil the reputation of an entire department or worse still the whole damn company. I find that devious and deceptive individuals or plainly those who simply can't write a line right, can be a massive liability even if they're hired to save $$$ by efficient "cost-cutting."

I want to make a request for pets tomorrow and see how that goes. On second thought, I'd probably keep my pet safe at home.