Friday, May 19, 2006

Stop the Presses. . . or not

So yesterday the major part of my project almost came to a complete stop. Realizing that the translator we got would not be able to conduct the Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and Chandereyee (one of my co-workers) who normally goes out with me would not be able to go, (and maybe not to the others as well) I finally had a meeting with my boss, Laboni, to figure out how these were going to get done.

It started well enough. I explained why the translator we got could not conduct the FGD and asked if this was still important enough to proceed with, and gave my suggestion of what should happen next.

Laboni then proceeded to virtually blow up that after 5 months we could not get 10 FGD completed.

I informed her that those she had placed me to work with did know about this for the last 5 months, however no one did anything until Chandereyee went out with me.

At which she continued to blow up about how this wasn’t a group project, there should be more than 2 people involved, we haven’t made it a priority, where the blame should be placed, yadda, yadda, yadda. And since they hadn’t made it a priority or supported me in a group like fashion the whole thing should be canceled.

This sent Chandereyee, already suffering from laryngitis into a coughing fit. And while Laboni extolled a while longer on CINI deficiencies and how they only do something if it’s connected to a donor or funding (which is pretty true), I tried to calmly remind her that 3 FGD were already scheduled for the next week.

It took about 15 mins to get her to see reason and allow us to continue on with my evaluation as planned. But talk about a stressful 1/2 hour. The major part of all of the stuff I've been working on for the last 9 months almost got permantly shelved. OY!

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