Goyang Kaki Friday....

With the workload piling up, office room in a mess from a recent move, and a packed calendar for the next few days, I shouldn’t really be “goyang kaki” (relaxing). I should really be in the office clearing things up despite today being a Friday. But that’s what I did this afternoon, “goyang kaki”, sipping tea and do what I do best, my favourite waste of time (there is a wonderful old school song by Paul Owen titled “My Favourite Waste of Time”), watching the fantasy box we all call TV.

Well into my routine of channel hopping, I came across the movie titled “We are Marshall”. At first I thought it was a movie about some security guys going after escaped convicts. In actual fact, it was a movie based on a true story about an American Football team of the Marshall University. Sad, moving, gripping and full of emotional roller coaster as the Marshall University and its’ community came to terms with losing the whole football team, players and coaches, in a plane crash and rise again through sheer determination of the new head coach and the whole community. (Opps! What am I doing? Promoting a movie? Hey the producer didn’t pay me a single cent to do this.)

One scene or rather one quote caught my eye (or was it my ear?). In that particular scene, faced with repeated rejections from the footballing authority to their letters pleading for some “kelonggaran” and allow freshmen to play in the senior team, the Head Coach said to the University President:

“I am willing to bet, you did not propose to your wife over the phone. I am also sure she didn’t say yes in a letter.”

All my senses were “aroused”, my ears stood up, my head turned, on hearing this dialogue! To me, in a nutshell, it is saying, if you really want to achieve something, if you want to get the maximum impact, do it “in person”, face to face. Letters, telephone calls, e-mails and text messages can only do so much to put your message across. There is no substitute to “face to face” conversation. So when in situations requiring decisions, especially importants ones, or you need the other party to understand your point of view, do make the extra effort to meet “face to face”. As my boss used to say and still says quite a lot, more and more people enjoyed playing “ping pong” and the game of “shooting letters”. In the end, nothing gets done, nothing will be achieved........