Meetings Meetings Meetings... Life of a Vendor

This morning at 9:30am, I had received a phone call from a pengarah at the Maps Department requesting for a meeting with me.  He had mentioned over the phone in a very nice way that there is a problem with our High Definition Scanner and the problem is now escalated to him.  Though we are sharing the works on this contract with our sister company, my immediate reaction was to ask him what time would I be able to come and see him.  He told me at 11:00am.  

I got out of bed, called my Technical Manager and asked him to call the Engineer in charge of the scanner to ascertain what are we doing about this issue.  Then I had gone to the toilet and sat on the "throne" to figure out what I needed to say to the Pengarah to solve the issues.  I realized that this was an exercise of managing expectations.  Though the sister company is providing very little commitment and the issues are all part of their areas of responsibility, the contract was still under our company which means we are responsible for it.  After coming up with a solution on how to manage the flow of the meeting I was out of the door of the bathroom.  Really, this throne thing works. 

I was out of the door at 10am sharp, and the driver was there waiting for me and ready to go.  Tried to call my counterpart at the sister company but he was in a meeting, so I had sent him an sms.  Talked to my Technical Manager and he briefed me and said that he and the Lead Engineer for the scanner would be there.  Arriving at the Maps Department at about 10:45am, I went to the canteen and waited for everyone to arrive.  I had received a phone call at 10:50am and the sub-pengarah requested for a postponement to 11:30am.  Upon the arrival of the Lead Engineer we discussed and came up with a Plan of Action as well as a timeline for us to present to the Pengarah.  This is all part of managing the expectations. 

The meeting went OK, there was a lot of sarcastic remarks about the scanner and we as the vendors just kept quiet and presented what we needed to say.  After the meeting, several other meetings were set for the next week.  What a week it's going to be.  At least there is a plan to implement certain things, and I hope it will go through. 

Upon returning to the house, I fell asleep for about 1 hour and left for office.  The total travel time from the house to the office is about 2 minutes and then I was told that there is progress on our Military Submission.  Now it seems that there is a meeting called for Monday, 8th of April for a presentation of our products.  I am now in a quandary whether I should attend to this meeting.  Well decisions must be made.