Perhaps no words send shivers down a company employee's back more than when your boss gravely tells you that he'd "like to have a chat with you." So, when mine at the English-language conversation school that I was teaching at said this to me a few years ago, my heart sank to the ground.
"Well, Raju, the thing is . . .," he muttered. "Do you remember that young woman who requested a transfer the other day from your class?"
I had a vague recollection of her.