During its 10 years of operation, MD Online has encountered many amusing and memorable circumstances. Today we want to share one of those memories with you.
Q: Before working on any texts promoting MD Online’s ten-years anniversary, a message was sent to the employees with a question that went something like this: ‘Did anything memorable happen during your time at the company?’ The first person to respond to this message was Agata – those of you following our posts may remember her from year three, where she talked about her beginnings at the company. However, today we meet to talk about her memories. Could you please introduce yourself?
Agata Sibilska-Woźniacka
Agata: Sure, I’m Agata, working as a special project manager. I have a degree in philology, and my love for words [from Greek philéō ‘I love’, lógos ‘word’, ‘learning’] led me straight here 🙂
Q: Thank you! Now that everyone knows that we’re dealing with the manager for special tasks, can we move on to the story you briefly mentioned? It was about your son who answered the phone, right? Could you share that story with us?
Agata: That was a tough day… For the first time, a new, promising client reached out to us. Wanting to deliver the best quality, we assigned the translation to a very good, experienced and excellently educated university professor – a man over 80 years old, but in excellent condition, who was very proficient in using modern tools for professional translations. Suddenly, contact with the translator was lost, the delay was already knocking at the door, the professor was not responding at all, we wrote, we called – he seemed to have disappeared. After some time, his wife contacted us with the information that her husband had been hospitalized and his condition was not good. The translation was not done, the client kept calling us, I was on the other phone trying to reach any other translators who could do it “ by yesterday,” and in the meantime… I overheard my 3-year-old son was having an excited conversation in the other room, as it turned out, with this angry client!
Q: Oh my! Haha
Agata: Yes, it turned out that we employ both older people and children in the company – no wonder we’re running late. Hahaha
Q: Did something happen to your son as punishment? I think every parent in such a situation immediately reaches for the phone.
Agata: I was so exhausted with the situation that apart from checking who was calling and calling back the already really angry client, I didn’t take any steps in relation to my son. He was only 3 years old, so I think someone raising their voice at a small child over the phone is not fair either 😉
Q: I agree on that. The client certainly could have had grievances about the situation, but pouring out bitterness on a random person on the phone… Well, nevermind! You must have shared this situation at work, right?
Agata: Not immediately, at first I was afraid to admit that there was some “fuel poured onto the fire” at my home. I confessed six months later at our annual team meeting! Relaxation at the SPA and a delicious dinner loosened my tongue, and the memory of the client had already faded away.
Q: Under such circumstances, it surely ended with jokes. Especially in a peaceful atmosphere and without the stress associated with this unsuccessful… Oh, right! How did the situation end? Was the text delivered?
Agata: Yes, it was delivered, but the client didn’t want it from us anymore.
Q: Sad ending, but usually we learn something from such stories. Have any steps been taken in the company to prevent similar situations from happening in the future?
Agata: Of course, we learn from every difficult situation in order to prevent them from happening, although this one was really difficult to predict. I don’t want to delve into our internal procedures, but we set certain points that, by controlling them, we are able to “catch” such and similar situations and react in time.
Q: It’s nice to hear that, learning from mistakes is the healthiest approach. Can we assume that the son is no longer working with us? 🙂
Agata: But he is! He packs holiday cards and other gifts that we occasionally send to clients and colleagues 🙂
Q: In that case, I hope to receive a package packed by our little employee someday! Thank you very much for the conversation.
Agata: Sure! I’ll tell him to prepare a special card! Thank you, too.
Every company has various mishaps and funny situations on their record, which employees remember with a smile on their faces on different occasions. Sometimes bosses only find out about them after a few years. Do you want to know more? Click here!
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