An Exasperating Discussion

It was the 4th day rolling (if we skip Saturday) that we engaged in yet another long drawn and even slightly argumentative discussion on the new project. By now, both my line manager and I could more or less ‘tune’ our frequency to each other.

I have tried for 1.5 day to rationalize the financial model and tie the numbers but to no avail. I gave up and finally called for help from my line manager. Soon after we met, I launched into a monologue to explain the entire concept. I was hoping to seek some views and buy-in that I was on the right track.

After about 15 minutes, he cut me off and remarked that when a person stopped schooling, the brain would also retard. You must be wondering why in the world he said that. After working with him for sometime, I could more or less get the HINT. He was simply hinting that he had no idea what I was explaining.

Before I had any chance to rephrase the concept, he suggested taking another short break by going coffee. I refused vehemently and stressed to him we had to complete the model. I continued my ‘long story’ about the model again.

He broke me off again about 5 minutes later and commented that he read somewhere that caffeine could stimulate the mind and that perhaps after coffee we would have better idea on how to work out the numbers. He was very persistence about his coffee. I refused to fall into his trap of taking breaks because I knew it would be difficult to get him to concentrate later. Therefore, I object to this ‘weird’ theory and told him that we would just lose our train of thoughts if we took a break then.

His reply?

He cheekily said that his train of thoughts had already ‘derailed’ ages ago.

I refused to relent and forced him to sit down and understand the concept. Finally, I asked if my concept worked mathematically. He looked at me blankly. I added that engineers were supposed to be better in maths than accountants. He rebuked that engineers were good in maths but not in financial maths.

I GAVE UP! Sometimes I do not know if I should laugh at his humour or be infuriated by his non-seriousness. Sigh!

I guessed some of his non-seriousness has gradually rubbed off me. When I finally tied off the numbers and sent the model to him, he asked me how I have managed to resolve the problem.

My reply?

It was a trade secret. *Wink!*