A Meeting with the President of a Fortune 500 Company.

Sometime in early May I and a few colleagues, recently elected to sit as committee members of our retirees club, had the opportunity to pay a courtesy call to the President of the Company that I retired from. It is the national oil company which has gone global and is listed in Fortune 500. The president is a very busy man and being head of a global company he has to travel a lot. He had been away visiting customers around the world for three weeks and had just returned a couple of days prior to our meeting. It was pleasant for us to be recognized and accorded the appointment to call upon him so soon after his return knowing at the back of our minds that he would surely have other pressing issues to attend to in his office on his return.

On meeting us he immediately put us at ease by starting with small talks on the view from his office at the 82nd level of the building and other environmental issues seen from that level of the city and the surrounding hills. After the usual pleasantries he mentioned some areas of concerns, especially health of his staff, the state of affairs amongst the young and younger set of staff within the company and how he visualize areas of inputs that we the elderly generation can contribute to the company. We also discussed joint activities and areas of cooperation between the Retirees and the organization. All in all it had been a good meeting, indicative of his full support for our movement. We chatted on a lot of general issues, friendly banters even, and not necessarily related to activities of our club. We felt very comfortable with his acceptance and hope that this relationship flows down the corporate hierarchy, right down to those whom we interact directly for our activities. We left a good half hour beyond the time allocated to us and we noticed that he too was at ease with us, the reason for the extension of time I guess. He promised to find time to join us in one of our activities and I hope this will happen soon as it will boost participation of fellow retirees in the club’s activities…

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Petaling Jaya