Global Business English

Published in DNA Epaper on 16 June 2011  

Respected Sir,

A very good morning to you.

Please find attached the details of the minutes for today morning's team call. Since I am new to organisation, I am having difficulty in understanding the agendas of the meeting and would like to touch base with you for more clarity. Which office are you based out of? I can arrange a team F2F as needed.

At the start of meeting, I was waiting for Mr. Min Feng to join the call, he said he was sorry for late and thank you for patient. Mr. Fosters asked how I was going, I said I was going by bus. Regarding the project, Ms. Wolf asked me to marry the projects documents. Sensing my confusion, Ms. Pat said she would grease the mocked-up skids to make the process easier. She also mentioned about an alternate plan but I could not hear her well and wished she would speak a bit more louder.

We were briefed about managing stake-holders.

They will be giving us a roadmap to deploy the tools in other Geos. I was in agreement of this, as without a map of the road we can get lost easily in other Geos.

The PM also said something about becoming firefighters by pushing the backs of unreasonable clients. Before I could clarify what he meant, he said he had a hard stop and we gift wrapped the meeting. We were also told to move up the other meetings in advance for a valid preponement.

Note: All action-items are to be actioned by the actioners by the end of the week.

I have tried to keep the minutes as-is as-much as-possible. I apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused.

Thank you and warm regards,
A terribly confused Indian speaker of Global English.

14 comments:

  • Anchor | March 29, 2011 9:41 AM

    Interesting perspective. :)

  • ashish | March 29, 2011 7:14 PM

    did you add "by the actioners" from your side??

  • Sandhya | June 20, 2011 12:47 PM

    oh god all of this sounds very familiar and very correct (note "very correct")

  • Shriti P | June 20, 2011 12:48 PM

    I love it.. By the way... isn't it very very realistic! I am sure it's not made up... The best part is all of us understand what the confused speaker is saying!! I love that... We are so understanding;)

  • See Bee | June 20, 2011 12:48 PM

    Shriti most of these come from personal experience. I was shocked when a Britisher once told me to marry a document. My mother had no idea what a roadmap was, my father was upset that a military term like 'deploy' was being used for stuff other than troops or missiles, and he ACTUALLY thought a stake-holder is someone who holds a stake, like the pic above. He he

  • Shriti P | June 20, 2011 12:49 PM

    I know... When I first heard the word "bastardized" in the context of a document i was writing for a software product...I was like TRAUMAAAA... what did I do to earn this now...:)hahahaha... and even today I laugh when anyone says "massage the info a little..." I am like...plzzzzzzzz...:)))

  • See Bee | June 20, 2011 12:49 PM

    HAHAHHAAHAH "massage the info" is new to me too - lol

  • Teena Gomes | June 20, 2011 12:50 PM

    the memories came streaming back... marry the docs indeed :)

  • Angel Papali | June 20, 2011 12:51 PM

    Chits....gosh..this is just SOOO typical!! Can't avoid saying 'AAAAAAAAARGH!!' while tearing my 'ha-yer' out & can't stop laughing either! Pleeeeeze don't even mention it to S & K from UHC...or they'll lose their equanimity! But you're right...there is def an avenue awaiting you -- Global English -- if you pleeeze!! LOL

  • Manglika Singh | June 20, 2011 12:51 PM

    this is really funny :)

  • N. Dube | June 20, 2011 12:52 PM

    You should read Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri books..(if you hvaent done so already)...he's uncanny and seriously funny. The best take on Indian/Punjabi/Dilli English I have read after the Inscrutable Americans :)

  • Deepa Joseph | June 20, 2011 12:52 PM

    Chitra, I had my day of laugh...but truthfully, I too was in such a similar position when I started my career. ha ha ha ha...

  • Canary | March 16, 2012 6:13 PM

    Been forever! Somehow got ur blog again and beginning to read up on what I have lost :) How have u been? :)

  • Spacing Places | May 27, 2013 1:16 PM

    "All action-items are to be actioned by the actioners by the end of the week."

    Super-liked.