Sunday, April 20, 2008

Chow Ang Moh Scores an Own Goal

The Players:
Director: Quiet, humourous, experienced, approachable. Everyone loves and respects him.
GM: Sarcastic, takes credit, knows of to make use of ppl, or use their words against them. Everyone avoids him.
CAM: Chao Ang Moh. Pet of the GM, so rose from AM to AGM in 1.5 yrs. Regularly talks down to ppl, like to chee hong local girls. Everyone detests him.
Me: Last one left in my team since Jan. So have to handle day-to-day requests, long term projects, organise meetings, talk to suppliers, everything. 1 man doing 3 person's work.
K: Director requested GM to temporarily loan someone out of his 20+ strong team (including CAM's) to assist my team. K was the 1st person approached by GM, and he emailed everyone saying that K would stay until we get more ppl in my team.

The Background:
K has been loaned from CAM's team for over 2.5 months. with 5 ppl in the team left and a major project coming up, GM and CAM seek to get K back. What their narrow-mindedness fails to see is I'm involved in the project too, and if she moves back, they increase CAM's team by 20%, but reduce mine by 50%. We are now in the midst of changing all our email addresses to suit the new company structure, effective next Monday.

The Saga:
Morning - I see the new email address linked to my ID, but K does not. I email CAM (co-ordinator in this) asking if he is the right person to extend the email address to K, if not, pls let me know who it is.
CAM's reply: K does not need the new email as she is moving back to our team.
My reply: Was not aware of any such arrangement, and anyway it was agreed that she stay until new ppl arrive. pls give her accesss.

No reply, until late afternoon - CAM comes over and says that K is going back, and Director is aware.
Me: Really? I wasn't aware of anything like that. OK, I'll speak to Director then.
CAM: W-w-why do you want to speak with him?
Me: Because I don't agree.
CAM: OK, well it's up to you. But Director's not in his office right now, maybe we'll go talk to him later.
Me: OK. (I can see CAM's desk and into Director's office from my seat.)

5 mins later, Director returns. Catch CAM and 2 of his team members going into a meeting room. I stop the door from closing.

Me: Director is in now. Shall we go see him?
CAM: I'm busy with this thing that I have at the moment.
Me: OK i'll go see him 1st then.

I go into the office and relate to the Director what had exchanged, asking if K was really going back on Monday.
Director smiles and says that he is aware that they want her back, but he hasn't agreed yet. We chat a bit more about what K is doing and how long I need her for.
Me: I thought the premise was she stay until new ppl come in.
Director: Haha of course you'll want that. Well we'll see. (This can read as he's not going to do anything) ;)
Me: OK, thanks Director. (I don't really call him that. The episode is real but names have been changed)

I walk back to my desk, passing CAM in the meeting room along the way. Thru the glass he sees me and I use my thumb to point to the director's office, meaning to say I've spoken to Director already. Maybe he thinks I mean director wants to see him. I don't care. Later ground reports from his side say his face was really red when he returned to his seat.

If he didn't attempt to get K back and trick me into agreeing, he wldn't have shown the Director what a liar he is. In all fairness, probably the GM got him to do it, then he shd've attempted a smarter scheme. He was counting on me to obediently relent coz he's a manager and the Director was mentioned. But I went straight to the Director instead coz
a) everyone knows he's an asshole and I know I can't trust him.
b) Director is approachable and he'll see the big picture.

If I am wrong, I will admit my mistake and will apologise. But if I am right, I will stand firm, and you will back down.

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