To be annoyed at my colleague?

[PandaAndLionRoar]

I was in an all day meeting with the board/C suite in work today. My colleague/friend was in work but not in the meeting with me. It was her last day before MAT leave and it was coming up to 5pm and I was still in my meeting with the board so she came to the meeting room and interrupted my meeting by knocking on the door and then asking for me and saying “I’m sorry to interrupt but can I have a quick world please, it’s urgent”. It turns out she didn’t have anything urgent that she needed me for but she just wanted to say bye to me before she goes on MAT leave and knew that I wouldn’t be out of my meeting before 5pm when she left the building so she decide to interrupt my meeting to say bye instead. I feel a bit annoyed that she interrupted the whole meeting just to say bye to me whilst I was in a meeting with the board, fair enough if it was something urgent but it wasn’t. She could have just phoned me later to say bye if she wanted. AIBU to be a little annoyed with my colleague for interrupting my meeting just to say bye? She took me out the meeting room and just said that she just wanted to say bye to me before she goes on MAT leave and then we chatted for 2 minutes and that was it, nothing urgent at all!

I think plenty of people understand what she’s talking about it’s the tone of over inflated sense of importance that’s jarring I suspect. I regularly attend our board meeting, I’d pop out to say goodbye to a colleague - not only is it in fact the professional thing to do it’s also very human which is what’s expected of senior leaders now, it’s not the 90s!

Perhaps the OP was taking the minutes and that's why she was annoyed?

Still, it's done now so what can she do?

One day hopefully you'll realise work is just work. EVEN IF ITS C SUITE

Your wanky c-suite meeting is so unimportant in the vast scheme of things that it's laughable. I don't get how people take this stuff seriously tbh.

It doesn't offend me at all. You are who you are.

You said yourself it was two minutes. Get over yourself! And it’s on you for not saying goodbye before going into a meeting that you knew would mean you’d miss her on a really important day for her.

Sure and so are you.

Maybe get over yourself? Your colleague likes you enough to want to say a proper goodbye. Fucking hell, how dare she?

What I'm taking away from this is that you need to deploy better security at future meetings. A couple of armed TDOs outside the door to take out any low-level interruptions before they get close. I've seen the "maternity leave" scam done many times. That colleague was grooming you for months just to lead up to that moment. As you're hugging goodbye, she plants the bug on you and then the rest of that meeting gets transmitted straight to the opp.

As it’s Christmas, this with ‘jingle’ bells on. Get a grip @PandaAndLionRoar Unless it was your first ever board meeting, in which case I understand. But only if it was your very first board meeting!

I think YABU, it will have been an emotional day for her and it would be nice for her colleagues/friends to say goodbye and wish her well.

FFS can't you credit the OP with even a little intelligence?

She's been in a board meeting all day so I presume she has more than a very basic understanding of what her organisation does and what might or might not be something that could potentially have a massive impact on it.

If it were something that could potentially have a massive impact, don't you think she'd have the the gumption and common sense to realise that and to inform the meeting of that immediately on her return, without the need to be interrogated?

As others have said, all that is required is for one person - preferably the chair - to briefly enquire if there's anything that anybody in the meeting needs to know. Full stop.

Ain't that the truth 😚

Me too

As the song goes "let it go, let it go" your important meeting was a life or death meeting was it!!! Go to bed and rest your brain.

Did you have a meeting with the Board?!?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘meeting’ and ‘board’ written so many times in a post, or anywhere for that matter!

Why didn't you just tell the truth?

This.

I think you still need to learn people and compassion are more important than pretentious c-suite meetings. I have learnt my lesson kind of hard way.

Exactly.

Totally. And it was an all day meeting. Surprised the board have this kind of time and that it was so important that two minutes would make or break the company.

Why is the natural reaction to be annoyed as she didn’t say “can I borrow you for a minute to say goodbye as I am going on Mat leave”. The way she asked to speak to you was completely professional and wouldn’t make the board think any less of you (or her).

Overreaction and you are taking yourself too seriously (and yeah I report to the board (sorry who actually says c suite) or a large multinational so have been in your shoes.

Corporate world is so full of false pretentious egos stroked by titles and being associated with those titles.

Nothing really worthwhile happens in most of these meetings. Blah blah blah all showing how important knowledgeable and talented communicators they are.

Kindness, compassion is something they don't like to be associated with because they're oh so super important, busy with the real sort of busy-ness, the people making loads of money with all their incredible talent, you would think they were dipped in some special essence before being born.

Rant over 😆

Someone has had a sense of humour bypass. Back in the real world, people bend conventions and rules all the time when it suits, and it was nice that she saw it as an important thing to do because- a wild stab - she might actually love you as a friend for some reason.
You sound joyless, however, and have quickly forgotten what a big deal having a baby is, especially if it's a first.

Once I had to leave a meeting to use the washroom. I regret it to this day. I forgot to raise my hand and ask the MD for permission. I might have been gone 4 minutes. When I got back the meeting was concluded and a whole new company strategy, direction and change had been decided without me. To this day I still haven’t been able to keep up or understand all that happened in those four minutes as it was so momentous. Never again.

Agree with all the posters saying she was completely professional to interrupt that way given it was c suite meeting

She actually thought you were that important that she wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to you

Anyway we all learn our lessons in due course

Because she had already told them it was something “urgent”.