Difficult Client

Uncle Walton cooked me the curry chicken and the fish belly stew when I was in Hong Kong. Uncle Walton, his wife, my mom and I went to a small tea house at the hill top. We also picked the fresh beans and lettuce in the farm nearby.


My mom reheated the chicken curry and threw in those fresh veggies, our lunch looked so colorful!
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I arrived in the client in KL on Monday only to realize the static data is not completed. To make it worse, the consulant who works on the static data was on vacation and she took the build machine with her.

Being penny counting, the client got very upset that they have to pay for my expense while I cannot do my job. I also felt pretty bad that I knew nothing about the project until I came. However, I was scheduled to come to KL next week. Because there are 2 national holidays in that week, thus, our project manager swapped the time with my Tokyo client. I was panicking telling the client I think I cannot do any work except going through the requirements with front and risk officers in a workshop. However, the project plan has only allocated 1 day for workshop, we cannot kill the rest of the week by extending the workshop. Also, there is only 14.5 days allocated for me in phase I.

The client is very tight in their budget, their project manager kept asking why I am here and I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer. The worse is yet to happen,, we cannot seem to contact our project manager, who has devised this schedule.

Being grilled by their project manager (he kept interrupting our conversation with comments like “didn’t we talk about this with xxx? There is really a problem with your internal communication”, I still have to conduct the workshop with the front, risk officers. I did my best to keep calm and being as honest as I can. I want to find a solution.

At the end of the day, I said to him, suppose you think it is impossible for me to work on your report at my demo database, I need 1 day from you to draft up the specifications. I will then ask our company to absorb my expense on Wednesday, and I will then take Thursday and Friday off. He didn’t seem happy but accept it as an option.

I then went back, trying hard to call our project manager. I finally got to him yet he explained that I would have to work on the demo database and then transfer my work from the demo database to the client’s at end of May. I am skeptical that the client will buy into this. Yet he was determined this is the plan and the client have no other choice but to take it. All parties agreed to have a conference call the next day.

I was so very nervous, got up and then did some work, and ran to the office to give our project manager a call before the conference call. He sounded all confident that his plans will work. However, after we have appeared so not professional, I really see no reason why it is going to succeed.

During the conference call, again the complaints flew off from the client’s project manager. The bank’s treasurer is also in the room. Our project manager attacked the client with 2 points. One, Joey is on site this week because you are being cheap not willing to have her next week. Second, suppose you wouldn’t want Joey this week, we will have no other time for you (indeed, my schedule has been booked until mid June).

I tried to easy the tension, promising that I can go about do the work at the demo database and guaranteeing the reports can be delivered on time. Our company (that’s I) should and will absorb any extra time needed for the migration. In explaining “We really wanted to help you save money, although there are additional work needed to be done, we are willing to do it” Gee… This is the only way we can save us some face?