06 September, 2005

Cow-orker: my own personal Category 5 storm

Bloody hell... I've been trapped on the phone by the Cow-orker for the last twenty minutes as she tries to cajole me into remembering the fine details of an 8,500 unit order from 15 months ago.

I try explaining that I placed the order well over a year ago and my memory of the details is hazy. For some reason she doesn't believe me. In fact she tries to argue that it really wasn't that long ago at all, even through the purchase order she's looking is clearly dated June 2004. I know that for a fact because I made her read it out to me, and she still tries to convince me that I was exaggerating the length of time that had elapsed. Argh. It's a miracle my eye hasn't started twitching.

"I'm sure a mistake was made," she repeats for the fiftieth time as she describes (in Cow-orker terms, of course) all the steps she's taken to query a database system I haven't used in four months. "I need to know about 900 of those units - can you remember who out of the 200-odd clients covered on that order these ones were ordered for?"

It's a struggle to convince her that I can't. She seems to be set against believing that I can't just give her all the answers to the questions she's asking.

You can probably tell just how much meaningful input I've been able to have in this conversation by the fact that I've been typing this one-handed while she babbles away on the other end.

On the bright side it's been a glowing reminder as to why it would be so terribly foolish to apply for any jobs back at my old work...

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