Wondering if colleague did this on purpose

[WilloWhisperer]

Today I had an important meeting arranged which I have been organising since July. In the end I rearranged my schedule to work today (I work for this company and have my own small business where I usually see clients on a Friday so had a lot of logistics to arrange).

The meeting was at 12 and so our senior consultant wanted me to go through some things in the morning. I told our whole team where I would be, asking them to get me when the people I was expecting had arrived.

The layout is a line of offices which are tucked away. The senior consultant and I had the door shut as we were discussing confidential information, furthest away from the entrance. There is a junior colleague who always huffs that she has to show people where these particular rooms are (she is sort of part of our team but in a different capacity)

I came out of the office at 12.10 to see if the people I had a meeting with were here yet. No one had got me so I thought they might be late. After a bit of investigating, she said “I looked around and couldn’t find you, so they left”. She said she asked around. But none of my team saw her come up the corridor. All she had to do was ask my whereabouts and any of them would have known where I was/ to come and get me. They were all working with their doors open.

She has form for doing things “to prove a point” so I’m wondering if she has done this on purpose? I don’t know when I/they am going to be able to rearrange and we will probably lose work because of this.

You could have rung them to call them back as they can't have got far in that time. You needed to be available at 12 if not beforehand , not rely on others to find you.

Then you get up and go. Sorry but set in his ways or not you look unprofessional here.

i work in an investment bank with Ds and MDs who have egos that are enormous but if I need to leave then I need to leave and I excuse myself

If your team were on point why didn't one of them go to meet your guests?

because our team are tucked out of the way and would see if the guests were here.

I actually walked out to see if I could catch them but they had gone as far as I could tell.

my suspicion is she didn’t even look because she thought they were wrong - she knows I don’t work on a Friday and I suspect she turned them away because of this.

Not sure I understand this business arrangement.
Two parties take months to secure a date to discuss things that are presumably beneficial to both?
And then they trot off after 5 minutes because a junior 'can't find them'.
Not in any world I've worked in.
Unless they really didn't need or want to be there at all.

She should have called you if she couldn't find you. Definitely an attitude problem.

That's a written warning I should think.

Isn't there a receptionist?

If the meeting was at 12 you need to be there at 12.

It's question of piss off the senior consultant or miss the meeting.

In most businesses you'd need to go down and collect your clients. Is the colleague a receptionist?

If she turned them away because she genuinely thought you weren't there, that's on you for not making her aware that you were in, that they were expected and she should let you know when they arrived.

I should have made it clear they are another team within the large company so didn’t come far - but they are an extremely busy one and trying to get a meeting with everyone needed is like trying to catch smoke with your hands. It’s still weird they left so quickly but not so weird when you realise they aren’t coming far to get to the meeting.

But that doesn't explain why the people simply went away without making an attempt to contact the person they know they had a meeting with, something seems to be missing in the timeline

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!

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.

I think this is what bothered me most tbh. She clearly didn’t give a shit and was either being purposefully difficult, or just didn’t care enough to apologise for a mistake. It’s rude.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

She’s not wandering around the building - the only place I would be was about 8 rooms with only one exit/entrance which she helps to manage.

You'd sack her for this?!

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.

Just to add the whole set up sounds totally shambolic.

And I was in the one on the end, with all other doors open and people working. No one saw her go by, no one was asked. She could have guessed which one I was in had she walked up the corridor and seen I wasn’t in any of the others. It seems like she has done none of that

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!

Same for any organisation I've worked for.