Bad cartoon
Corbett | March 19, 2004 4:44 AM
Three irritating things about business communication in Taiwan:
1) I always feel so frustrated with the way people insist on what it is that they want, and when you don't actually say, "Dude, it's not going to happen that way, that's impossible, you are wasting my time," they will assume that you have agreed with them.
2) After you have assumedly agreed to something, whether it's a price, a deal, a favor, etc., the said person then calls your staff insisting that you have agreed to their whatever demands, and they get all pushy and defensive when your staff rightly tells them, "Well, I'll have to look into that..."
3) Then your staff comes to you, annoyed because of the pushy whoever, and upset because you haven't told them about the assumed agreement above their heads, and have put them in the uncomfortable spot of being the bad guy, and you become annoyed because you are thinking why are you bringing this back to me, and why are we all sitting around wasting our time on this when nothing was even said to that effect in the first place and we all know it?
It's a classic situation that repeats itself over and over like a bad cartoon.
Category: Ramble
Comments (2)
Comments
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Christine
March 19, 2004 6:40 AM
Corbett, immediately send them a contract right after your verbal commitment defining the terms and agreement stated in your conversation. That's what we've had to do in spite of the resistence by some to sign contracts. Saves everyone a lot of headaches and forces other party (and yours) to be accountable. Gives you a basis to work with else anything goes. =)
corbett
March 19, 2004 2:36 PM
Yeah Christine, I know...this is standard for me too, but I was talking about just basic communication, not meetings about a business deal. For example: Let's say a guy comes up to you at a bar and tells you he likes your Oriented parties, and has an idea. At the next party, he says, we can bring in DJs and we'll do a BIG party and print fliers with lots of promo, but you'd have to pay for the promo of course, and we'll give free drinks to all people who are gay and like hip hop and wear a red hat and you are like standing there going uh-huh, uh-huh, hmmmm, sip sip, and then after he's finished, you say, "Well, that sounds interesting, we've never done anything like that before, but you'll need to discuss this directly with Miss X tomorrow. She's the one who handles all the booking and organization for our parties. Here's her number...." Then the bad cartoon starts.