Gallery of the Uncommon
Researcher kicked out, but not without a project in his hand
INESC Porto was recently invited by a technological centre in Galicia to attend a meeting where the aim was to find for potential partners for an Interreg project. Not an uncommon thing and we only mention it because the meeting was somewhere halfway between Porto and Galicia.
Other than our friends, a group from a certain Portuguese university was also invited. When our researcher arrived at the meeting, running late because he mixed up all the cities in the border region (do appreciate the fertile imagination of the excuse…), already the Galicians and the other Portuguese group had started the meeting.
Upon arriving, our researcher introduced himself, as politeness demands, and the Galicians described the idea for the project, to which the INESC Porto collaborator responded naturally, explaining the institution’s competences and contributing with some ideas.
However – and we must have a “however”, otherwise this story would have no place in our Gallery – when our friend finished, the leader of the other Portuguese group shoots this perfect gem:
- "Very well, then. The colleague from Porto has already presented his competences and listened to our Spanish colleagues … We now ask you to please leave, so that we can carry on with the meeting ".
With countrymen like these, Miguel de Vasconcelos[1] is redeemed in his tomb. “Oh, man… Am I not supposed to be here?”, our researcher thought. "So, I was invited by the Spanish and now I’m kicked out by the Portuguese?"
The hesitation was evident: "Should I make of fuss out of this?". Politeness walked its lonely and painful path: diplomatically showing his disapproval, he handed over business cards to the Galician partners and left the room. Let us just imagine what he thought and felt while driving all those miles down to Porto. "This is unheard of!". Even for us.
And the best bit was saved for last: by evening he gets two e-mails from the Galician colleagues, from two institutions, making a sincere and embarrassed apology. And with that gesture, came a new invitation for a new meeting with INESC Porto (and with INESC Porto only) where the group of our miserable collaborator would end up being asked to integrate the consortium for the project they were going to submit.
And the Galicians called to set the details. The following dialogue is complete fantasy - we had to make it up because BIP has no access to telephone tapping conversations:
- "But, what about the ones in ********?", our researcher would certainly ask, still in awe.
- "Bueno... ellos son muy complicados...", he would listen from the other end. This said with all cross-border respect, for the communication could have taken place in Galician, a language that is genetically Portuguese, and the word "complicados" (picky) is immediately recognized.
We have already witnessed brave efforts from our collaborators who go out of their ways to assure contracts and internationalization, but to see one of them risking his own physical integrity, making himself handy to be beaten, abused and kicked out of a meeting, and even still manage to win a project, that is one bold strategy.
And in time of crisis, if we're in need of work, we can always invite our “picky” countrymen to organize yet again one of those modest meetings...
[1] Miguel de Vasconcelos e Brito (c. 1590 - Lisbon, 1 December 1640 was the last Secretary of State (Prime Minister) of the Kingdom of Portugal, during the Iberian Union, in which both kingdoms of Portugal and Spain remained separated but united by the same king and foreign policy. He was in office from 1635 to 1640, serving under the Vice-Queen of Portugal, Margarita of Savoy, the Duchess of Mantua, a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of Portuguese ancestry. He was probably the most hated collaborator with the Spanish, considered a traitor during the last years of the Iberian Union, especially after the revolts of 1637 (Source: Wikipedia).
