Few weeks back I am in the situation where I have to make a tough choice… One particular client has not signed the agreement, for two months..! We never had a problem before and the relationship is fantastic. My contat person is a woman… head of her division… I can describe her as the “coach” in that company, basically she inform me of the situation ahead of time, so I can prepare the things correctly, both information and politically.

When a client has been in two months receiving service without agreement, let alone payment, warned it many times that I can not continue providing the service to her team when we have not receive the agreement at certain date.

Certainly  the deadline is passed… I hold all the services… fair enough right… :). but my contact badly need me presenting to their bosses… and I told her, I bend my back to give them 2 months of service without agreement… so no dice… agreement first I said…

She is very surprise, little that I know she actually do not understand that we have certain deadline… the team has not properly communicated to her. Well, when she hear me saying that… she snapped and throw her phone… I can hear the sound of the phone hitting the desk :)

So there you go.. she will not respond to my email, phone or anything anymore, the bridge has burned. Flaming like the golden sun during the sunset, Beautiful… NOT. My boss almost has an heart attack knowing the situation (this client is one of the biggest revenue)… I said dont worry… I will solve it…

Later on I expressed my dissappointment with her team. So they speed up the process of signing the agreement, I also help them provide Top of The Line information… she still not responded my goodwill gesture, no thank you, no nothing… you know… woman… :)

So I have to find a way to meet her… she will not respond to any meeting invitation… so I aks  her team where can I meet her in person.. they told me that she usually go to a cafe after office hour,  I went there and meet her in person… at first, she is very surprised but she can not do anything because I already in front of her and said “Hi”with happy face, and the shake her hand and said. How are you… and you know what she said..?

“I still mad at you” she said… Yea I know… I respond… but I have limitation too you know… you will do the same if you were me. And she blurted  many many many words to express how dissapointed she is how she feel betrayed after all these years helping me… I patienly listening, you know… woman,  :).  cut the story short… we agreed on what we have to do when there is a very important deadline and there, we amended the bridge… no romance sorry… :)

Jkt 29th April