Wondering if colleague did this on purpose

No. The fault was with the person who dismissed the guests and didn't make a concerted effort to find OP. 10 minutes wait is nothing.

Surely the main fault was you not being free for the start of the meeting?

Unless there’s a drip feed coming and she’s your P.A I don’t really understand why it’s her responsibility to ensure you keep on time to your meetings and show people around to find you?

Like PP’s have said you should have gone into your meeting with this senior consultant and warned him you’ve got a hard finish at 12 or even 11:50 to buy you some time. That’s on you.

I'm sorry you missed your meeting but this sounds like a complete s##t show. Is this how your company usually operates? If it's an important client you task someone to meet them and bring them where they need to be. It's not that difficult

Sounds like a misunderstanding she forgot you were in the office today as you normally don't work. She may have thought they got the day mixed up, they may have thought they did if it was booked ages ago.

However, she should have gone to your team and questioned this not just assumed you weren't in. She sounds lazy rather than spiteful

Absolutely this.

the follow up posters saying you should have been sat waiting clearly have no idea how a busy company works.

corporations are hierarchy's. It’s not a reflection on the junior colleagues character or capability but it means that she is absolutely expected to make sure you were found in these circumstances. Whether it says it in her job description or not.

I don't understand why you didn't start your meeting with "I need to finish before 12 as have a meeting at 12" and do it. I also don't understand why you wouldn't tell the not receptionist where you were, when you saw the time and it seems odd that people would travel to a meeting but wait less than 10 minutes. Your colleague may be a stirring but you cocked it up yourself

Same for any organisation I've worked for.

I do think it’s time to review your systems for greeting guests if it results in you all looking unprofessional and losing business.

The senior consultant should not have kept you talking until after the meeting time. But, I don’t care how set in his ways he is, you should have said at just before 12 ‘right, well my clients will be here soon so let’s finish here and I will go and see if they’ve arrived’.

Junior colleague needs disciplinary action taken if she is purposefully sabotaging meetings. But don’t have her greeting clients and showing them in in the future. She’ll be the first impression they have!

Just to add the whole set up sounds totally shambolic.

Sounds like she is indeed making a point. If I was her boss, unless she had some very good explanation. I'd be making one too, in the form of a dressing-down and quite possibly a formal warning about her attitude, if she has indeed got the 'form' you suggest.

If someone is not there to meet a guest, you ask the guests to sit down, ask them if you can get them a drink, say you will go and look for who they are meeting, and if you can't find that person, you ask one of their own staff to come and greet the visitors. All of that takes more than 10 minutes. Given your timetable and the fact you went after them and they had gone, they can hardly have waited five minutes.Guests do not leave that fast unless they are either told to leave, or treated so rudely they have got totally pissed off. Even if nobody knows what's going on and they're a bit annoyed, people would normally try themselves to find out, like by ringing your mobile or whatever. You definitely need to find out fro your guests exactly what went on.

You'd sack her for this?!

She sound awful and should be dismissed. But you will need to go through a procedure of warnings which should start immediately. If she's been there less than two years she should be given notice now.

The whole set up seems very strange. I can’t imagine a situation where an internal meeting takes priority over meeting clients, or people wandering around the building trying to find people, when clients are waiting. You need a better system!

I'm sorry but this is on you rather than the junior colleague.

Why didn't you tell the junior colleague that you were expecting visitors, and where you would be? You shouldn't expect her to be wandering around trying to find you, especially when you're not usually in. It sounds like she has had a lot of her time wasted on things like this and has rightly had enough.

Next time, ensure you are at reception at 11.55 to meet your guests.

And they didn’t have your phone number to call you? Just left. You don’t have their numbers to call them, apologise and ask them to come back?

If the colleague said ‘she doesn’t work Fridays’ surely they would have called you to find out why you weren’t there.

Honestly, this whole thing sounds badly organised.

If a senior consultant is going to make you late for a very important meeting you say ‘the meeting is starting soon I will go see if they have arrived’. You dont just wait until they have made you very late. It’s perfectly fine, and expected, to manage your own time even if that means managing someone more senior than you.

It’s just as likely they got pissed off that they traveled to a meeting and you weren’t bothered about being on time for them.

Looked around and couldn’t find you? Bull. Why didn’t she call? Or speak to others or do something? Awful lack of giving a shit.

she should have been highly apologetic about what happened. The fact that she was so casual is telling.

Id report her. She needs warning. Negatively impacting business is ridiculous.

It's standard practice in my organisation that reception calls to let you know when the person who's coming to see you has arrived. Otherwise we'd have a load of people looking like dicks hanging around the reception area!