Stood Up

I waited for my lunch guest at at Solo for 10 minutes before I sent her an email: "Where are you?" After another ten minutes, I called her office. Got her on the line. That was a bad sign.

Her response: "D'oh!"

I have the emails to prove that we were supposed to have lunch today but she apparently forgot to put it in her calendar.

(She is one of my early, and favorite, bosses; I could never be upset with her because she taught me a lot, including, mostly, how to be a great boss. As I was writing this, she called me back, horrified. We are on for tomorrow).

I hold myself partially responsible. As a person who does at least 50 business lunches a year, I almost always confirm the morning of the lunch. I do this for two reasons. First, I deal with very busy people so this gives them a chance to blow me off early rather than 5 minutes before lunch; helps me plan my days better. Second, so as to avoid the rare situations where people completely forget about it. Today, I had meetings outside the office all morning, never got to my office before lunch and didn't confirm.

So, PSA, from MoC. Always confirm lunch or, one day, you will have to sheepishly go to the maitre de after sitting alone for half an hour and explain that you've been blown off.