To be annoyed at my colleague?

Oh OP. “C-suite” 🤣🤣🤣

OMG... i would be thanking my friend to get out of an 'all day meeting' surely you are allowed toilet breaks? (why did you not choose to say bye then?)
surely you are allowed tea breaks (why did you not choose to say bye then either?)
surely you are allowed lunch breaks (why did you not choose to say bye then either?)
and lastly if you are in such a major meeting you must be SUPER important which means unless you were taking minutes you would have been able to stretch your legs once in a while i presume????
I think you sound to me like you want to be looked up to as god like and not bothered by the peasants ...
your friend did a nice thing waiting ALL day until she had to leave before interrupting your previous meeting.
Your friend is better off without you if you value her so little... shame on you for even thinking about posting such tosh🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@Feelinadequate23 totally agree with what you've said.
Being in a meeting with the board or c-suite in that environment could have been a career-defining moment for the OP. That kind of interruption put her in a difficult spot and probably took her focus away at an important moment.
And yet many of the replies boil down to "be kind" or "oooh, look at you, someone's a bit up themselves, aren't they"
Woman working at a large corporate here 👋Aren't we allowed to have anything for ourselves?

These are professional people, they wouldn’t ask what the urgent thing was, more likely to ask (if anything) a simple, ‘is everything ok’? But likely to say nothing at all and resume the meeting. There’s some embellishment going on here I believe.

You sound like you have got quite an important job. But my god you sound dim. There is hope for me yet lol 😂

It's her last day, a big thing for her. Did she get a farewell with cake and good luck etc? Most likely trying to adjust to not being there and being nice.

Oh dear though, a c suite? I'm sure they will get over it, hardly a crime.

God I am so glad I am not tied up in this corporate bullshit ..

What do you want to do about it now? Tell her off? Tell the Board you're mortified on their behalf that she interrupted your big important meeting? Simply to say goodbye before going on leave for many months?
It wasn't the end of the world surely.
It was two minutes. Dwelling on it seems bizarre. She can't be that close of a friend by the way you seem to speak of her.

Oh I don't know about that, men think they can do everything a woman can do!!

Going on sabbatical then. It’s still inappropriate.

That's what I was wondering, but think I saw someone post that recently.

But...how rude of people to ask? If I was the chair at a push I'd politely ask 'is everything OK?'. Not because I cared just in case there was a reason I couldn't carry on with the meeting.

well a man wouldn't be going on mat leave, would he?

yes, OP, you are very important and she should grovel and apologise forever more.

In the real world: it was fine.

@ClementineChurchill I'm afraid I have to agree with you here. If you've not worked in that kind of corporate environment then you probably don't understand what it's like. I don't have my head up my arse and I absolutely understand there are more important things in life than work, but in the big multinational that i work for, to even have a seat at the table at that type of meeting with the leadership is a big deal. It would definitely be bad form to pull someone out of that kind of meeting if it wasn't an emergency. The colleague could have texted or called later.

💯this.

Are you for real? People out there have real problems, get a life

I’m sorry but the people here saying YABU clearly have no idea what a big corporate environment is like. Especially if you’re not part of the Board - this is a pressurised day for you having to prep everything to present to them and make a good impression. Her behaviour was unbelievably unprofessional and tbh would totally put me off meeting up with her.

I never get asked to present to the Board or even one level down from that but none of my colleagues would interrupt a meeting to pull any of us out just to say bye. That’s ridiculous! As you’ve said, she could have messaged later and you’d planned to meet up. Personally I’d be distancing yourself slowly - colleagues like her won’t help your career prospects at all.

Can't believe she would do that! She could have arranged to meet you for a lunchtime coffee at some point before her baby arrives if she wanted a farewell in person.

It could have been been a Bridget Jones interruption 🤣.

seriously though if I was in a meeting all day would have loved chance to be interrupted .

It was unprofessional of her but it was a one-off, exceptional occassion so I think you can be generous and overlook it this one time.

My husband gets on like this. Drives me mad. Especially when I can hear what they are all on actually talking about.
people get caught up in their careers and lose all sense of perspective.

Does no one from the meeting ever go to the toilet, or eat? Someone stepping out for 2 minutes doesn't sound very disruptive

I think a lot of people don’t understand what that kind of corporate environment is like. Yes she was very unprofessional. I expect by the time she comes back from ML you will have got over the irritation, though it’s not good for her reputation. But that’s her problem. I’d just leave it and move on tbh.