Sunday, May 13, 2007

Lessons from another's mistake

Over the week I witnessed first hand the folly of over-promising and under-delivering.

A external PR consultant had the misfortune of promising my employers considerable media coverage at the pick of a phone call. When she was pitching herself, she didn't realise that my boss is quite a media luminary herself. Believing her sales pitch, we let her organise press while my side did the logistics at a major hotel here.

So I will leave you to imagine the horror and embarrassment when only ONE reporter turned up. And it didn't help that when the consultant blamed the low turn out on a bigger press event somewhere else, my boss actually called up the editors of our major dailies only to find that there was no big event that warranted any pull out from our press conference. Of course she made it clear to the consultant what she thought of the whole thing .

I am not even more terrified of my boss now but so in awe of her ability to bite someone's head of in as civil a manner as having tea with the Queen. (okey, maybe not the queen but say.. Margaret Thatcher). And I hope never to be caught in such a situation ever in this life or the next. I think I am traumatized.

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