The Dean

On a slightly different tack, a good friend of mine (also a TV presenter) has a whole raft of cleverly constructed wordings for different situations, complaints, etc.

His best achievement? An e-mail complaint to British Airways about something or other included the brilliant (IMHO) phrase 'A company is only as big as the size of its apology'. Response: two free-of-charge business class returns London-Los Angeles.

mikewot

Last response from the MD, who seems more concerned about my deleting the email than anything else:
"Your email address was not on our system, I typed the address in manually and mistyped a letter. I am extremely sorry and would be grateful if we could put this behind us. Once again I will request that you delete the original email from your system as you were not the intended recipient."
Mistyped a letter and the email happened to go to someone who actually worked in Dubai, coincidence?

flares

Nick Owen?

Luton connection...

scrubbedexpat141

IN fairness, a typical shit yourself apology - probably a disclaimer saying if you're not the intended recipient blah blah blah.

Still nice to make senior folk's arseholes twitch.

weasel decentral

Bitch slap him with a toner cartridge that'll learn him.

I heard one of our Egyptian chaps fighting with a similar office manager type who was pulling him up on always being late in the morning and he was going to dock him some pay. He told him if he did that he would cut his throat in his sleep.

So if option 1 doesn't work, try this method.

scrubbedexpat141

That's amazing!

Still, tardiness is annoying.

Norm_uk

N.

Irishbeekeeper

The last company I worked for had the worst boss in the world!! He used to come in late but made sure that everyone was docked if they were even a second late and then used to stay in late, and I mean late till 9 or 10 in the night and made sure everyone stuck around with him. And on top of it he was an indecisive little ****er! So that meant all deadlines were always pushed to the absolute last minute and then make a desperate last minute ****y job of it all and ofcourse who gets blamed, everyone but the boss!
After putting up with his crap for 3 months (I needed that job then), I made sure I had my last salary in the bank, went into his office and absolutely GAVE it to him, a proper shouting match with the whole office listening, I made sure to leave the door open
Told him exactly what I thought of his working style and basically said what other people in the office who had been working with him for years couldnt or wouldnt say
He asked me to take a few days off which I did, but when he called and asked me when will I be coming back? I said I have better things to do! Utterly satisfying!

That was 12 years ago and everyday I thank the powers that be that I am my own boss now and do not have to put up with anyone!

britexpat76

So Millhouse, How did your'Chat' go?

Millhouse

As expected. He was a puppy this morning and I forced an apology. I then reminded him that as Officer Manager he is not the manager of all those in the office.

Haven't had the email retracting his warning - I'll remind him about it tomorrow, else I will send it.

britexpat76

I thought he had to hand you a written warning? Either way, he is a prick.

Millhouse

it was by email.

scrubbedexpat141

Did you ice cool silence him into submission or go both barrels?

Millhouse

I went to his office, did the niceties and sat down. I let him talk for a while and didn't respond until he got to the point of just rambelling. He had already apologised by that time.

I then started with an opening of, 'Thanks for that. Of course, I'm expecting an email from you retracting it' and then went on to explain how he is not my boss and he had confused two different things etc. We finished we me saying, I won't hold this against you and we will not talk about this further.

scrubbedexpat141

So good.

In the few occasions where I've had disagreements with people and then sat to discuss I always sit silently and wait for everything they say to come out. There is nothing for them to fall back on and they'll just keep going and going and going until eventually you're actually proved to be correct!

Well played sir.