Three Problems While the General Manager Is Out of Range
You are confidential assistant to the General Manager of a medium-sized engineering firm. On a Friday the GM leaves at 11:05 a.m. for a plant 70 km away and will be out of mobile range until about 3 p.m. Within forty minutes three things land on your desk. (a) A raw-material supplier's representative arrives and insists he has a 2 p.m. appointment with the GM. The GM's diary, which you alone maintain, shows nothing for 2 p.m., but the representative shows a WhatsApp message from the GM's personal phone saying 'come Friday afternoon'. (b) Finance brings a tender document that must carry the GM's signature and be deposited in a public sector undertaking's tender box by 4 p.m. The GM approved the contents by email yesterday but has not signed, and the other director is also out of station. (c) A caller who says he is the GM's brother-in-law asks for the GM's mobile number and the hotel where he will be staying that night.
1. How do you deal with the supplier's representative in (a)?
Read the worked answer
The message is genuine - it came from the GM's own phone - so the visitor cannot be dismissed as an opportunist, but it is also vague and does not fix a time.
Act in this order: (1) take his card, the reference number of his quotation or supply order, and a one-line statement of what he wants; (2) apologise for the diary gap and offer a definite slot - 3:30 p.m. is realistic given the GM's return, or the first hour on Monday if he prefers; (3) offer an alternative in the meantime: the purchase officer or deputy GM can open the technical discussion, so the visit is not wasted; (4) leave a written note on the GM's desk stating the visit, the message shown and the slot fixed; (5) if he presses for a price or quantity commitment, decline politely - you have no authority to commit the company.
Then fix the process gap: outside messages that create appointments should be entered in the diary the same day, with the source noted, so the assistant is never again caught with a diary that contradicts the GM's own message.
2. What can and cannot be done about the tender document in (b)?
Read the worked answer
You cannot supply the GM's signature, and you must not use a scanned signature, a rubber stamp in his name, or sign 'for' him without authority - that is a serious matter, not a shortcut.
Work the authority chain first: (1) ring the plant's landline or the plant manager's number and ask the GM to come to the phone; even a two-minute call settles the point; (2) if he cannot be reached, check the company's delegation-of-powers document - in most firms another whole-time director, the deputy GM or the company secretary may sign in the GM's absence for a bid within a stated value; (3) get the authorising officer's approval in writing (email is enough) and have him sign as 'for and on behalf of' the company, with the covering letter showing his designation; (4) if no one is authorised, ring the PSU's tender cell and ask whether an authorised covering letter with the signed bid to follow is acceptable - sometimes it is, but never assume it.
Report the outcome to the GM in writing the same evening, whatever happens.
3. How should request (c) be handled, and why does it matter?
Read the worked answer
Refuse the information, courteously and without hinting that anything is being withheld.
Script: confirm the caller's name and relationship, take a message with a call-back number, and say that the GM is at a plant and out of range; offer to pass the message on and to have the GM call back. Do not confirm the travel plan, the hotel, the mobile number, the time of return or even that the GM is away overnight.
Reasoning: the caller's identity is unverified - voice and a claimed relationship prove nothing - and the data requested is personal as well as commercially sensitive. A hotel name plus a mobile number tells a stranger exactly where a senior officer is and when he is alone, which is a security risk as well as a privacy breach. Even a genuine relative can be used as a channel to reach the GM about a pending tender.
Disclosure is permissible only on the GM's own instruction. Note the call, the time and the number in the message register, and report it when the GM returns.