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For a comms company, BT has a bit to learn about clear lines
of communication. Last week a call came in inviting Sneak to meet one of BT’s
top management bods. The PR person doing the inviting was (a) American and (b)
sitting at his desk in the US - not the best vantage point from which to
arrange a meeting between two people at London’s BT Centre, but fair enough in these days of global interconnectedness.
Sneak gets a bit mixed up about BT locations, and so
dutifully asked if BT Centre was the one with the big phallic tower. “Yes,”
confirmed the remote PR person, wrongly. The meeting was set for 3pm. The PR
person then confirmed 2pm by email. Sneak rarely reads emails carefully and
didn’t notice the discrepancy until the last minute. A call to the London press
office happily confirmed the time to be 3pm after all. “Just ask for me at
reception,” said local PR person number 2. 
Half an hour later, on arrival at the reception desk, Sneak
was informed that PR person number 2 was in fact on annual leave. After much
head-scratching, a third PR professional was found to escort Sneak to the
meeting, during which Sneak’s phone was, naturally, switched off.
With the meeting successfully concluded, at 4pm Sneak
left the BT Centre (the one without the big tower) and fired up his phone to
find a series of increasingly frantic voicemails from PR person number 2,
asking why Sneak had not turned up for his 3pm meeting. Sneak then returned to
the office to find a final email message from PR number 1, reminding Sneak not
to forget his 2pm meeting...
13 Jun 2005
