One of the sources of stress for my manager over recent months has been the wild fluctuations in the money available in our sections accounts. Part of this was due to the money laundering that was taking place, and upper management helping themselves to our funds when they needed a little extra for other projects elsewhere, but both practices were more or less brought under control when upper management discovered they'd been found out.
But the fluctuations continued, and money continued to inexplicably drain away. Until yesterday...
We're looking at a new function in our tracking and purchasing system. Ted E. looks over my shoulder and points to an account number.
"That's wrong. It always keeps coming up with that number when I'm doing the accounts, and it's wrong."
Manager and 2iC look at each other. "Uh, that's our account name, Ted. It's been that for nearly eighteen months now."
"Oh, really? I've just been changing it so the money goes to these other accounts where I think it belongs."
"For eighteen months?"
"Well nobody told me..."
"Eighteen months, Ted! You thought there was a bug in the system for eighteen months and didn't say anything?"
"Welll ... it was just easier to do it this way and not tell anyone that I was siphoning money off to other accounts..."
04 February, 2007
The Learning Cliff
Manager (in search of Ted E.): "Where is he? Has he gone home already?"
Me: "Well it is ten past three..."
Manager looks at me, trying to tell if I'm joking.
"Did he tell anyone he was planning to leave early?"
Remaining workmate and I confer briefly. "Yes ... yes, he did. At about quarter to three."
"Oh. I needed to ask him about something. There's also an e-mail I needed to talk to the two of you about, following on from what we were discussing earlier ... only now I can't find it."
"It's been filed!" I pronounce ominously. Ted E. has taken to filing e-mails, using a hidden formula known only to himself and Dan Brown.
"No, it hasn't," says our manager, "That's what I thought, too, but I tried a global search and it didn't turn up."
The global search apparently doesn't encompass the "deleted" folder, because that's where I find it a few minutes later.
"Found it," I announce cheerfully.
"Where? No, don't tell me." There's a pinched look of pain on my manager's face that I haven't seen before, but which is oddly familiar from the Cow-orker workplace. "I think I need to talk to Ted E. about this in the morning."
My manager hasn't so much hit the Ted E. learning curve as smacked straight into the Ted E. cliff-face.
Me: "Well it is ten past three..."
Manager looks at me, trying to tell if I'm joking.
"Did he tell anyone he was planning to leave early?"
Remaining workmate and I confer briefly. "Yes ... yes, he did. At about quarter to three."
"Oh. I needed to ask him about something. There's also an e-mail I needed to talk to the two of you about, following on from what we were discussing earlier ... only now I can't find it."
"It's been filed!" I pronounce ominously. Ted E. has taken to filing e-mails, using a hidden formula known only to himself and Dan Brown.
"No, it hasn't," says our manager, "That's what I thought, too, but I tried a global search and it didn't turn up."
The global search apparently doesn't encompass the "deleted" folder, because that's where I find it a few minutes later.
"Found it," I announce cheerfully.
"Where? No, don't tell me." There's a pinched look of pain on my manager's face that I haven't seen before, but which is oddly familiar from the Cow-orker workplace. "I think I need to talk to Ted E. about this in the morning."
My manager hasn't so much hit the Ted E. learning curve as smacked straight into the Ted E. cliff-face.
A pointy-haired moment
Argh.
Manager: "When I told you to contact these people, I meant 'contact these people, plus another unspecified group'. Did you read my mind, and have you heard from the unspecified group yet?"
Me: "Er... no."
Manager: "Then I think you need to get on with that urgently."
Manager: "When I told you to contact these people, I meant 'contact these people, plus another unspecified group'. Did you read my mind, and have you heard from the unspecified group yet?"
Me: "Er... no."
Manager: "Then I think you need to get on with that urgently."
In an ideal world.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that if you're going to insist other parts of the organisation turn over all their activities in a particular area to your management, that you'd make sure beforehand that if you didn't already have the means of managing that task properly, you acquired it pretty damned quickly and made sure you were able to deliver on what you were promising.
You'd think...
You'd think...
Ted E., Man of Action
The two beliefs that drive Ted E. at work are: give the client what they want, and act immediately.
Unfortunately this tends to fall down tragically when:
Unfortunately this tends to fall down tragically when:
- what the client wants isn't what they need or are entitled to;
- Ted E. doesn't understand what the client wants;
- Ted E. doesn't actually read the client's email and acts immediately to give them what he thinks they want.
Thinking outside the box ... way outside...
Oh dear. Ted E. has been "thinking outside the box" in a bid to get out of doing work that requires engaging brain cells.
"I know doing it this way is more secure and more accurate, but can't we go for convenience instead so I don't have to spend twenty seconds looking up a database to verify confidential information?"
"I know doing it this way is more secure and more accurate, but can't we go for convenience instead so I don't have to spend twenty seconds looking up a database to verify confidential information?"
Data consistency is for lesser beings...
Argh. I'm glad that's over with for now.
I've just finished (I think) doing some data cleanup to fix the problem of half-a-dozen products being erroneously labeled with around 30-odd different combinations. That just sounds painful, rather than difficult, so throw in the fact that the software vendor restructured its licensing and sales model twice over that period and youll start to get an idea of how "interesting" the task turned out to be.
And then consider that the next time Ted E. goes into the database, he'll look at what I've done, decide it's too hard to understand and that consistency of data within a database is only a guideline (and a loose one at that), and begin creating new and wonderful product descriptions all over again...
I've just finished (I think) doing some data cleanup to fix the problem of half-a-dozen products being erroneously labeled with around 30-odd different combinations. That just sounds painful, rather than difficult, so throw in the fact that the software vendor restructured its licensing and sales model twice over that period and youll start to get an idea of how "interesting" the task turned out to be.
And then consider that the next time Ted E. goes into the database, he'll look at what I've done, decide it's too hard to understand and that consistency of data within a database is only a guideline (and a loose one at that), and begin creating new and wonderful product descriptions all over again...
Holy Wars: the Innate Superiority of The Mac
Let me just preface this by saying first that I really don't care what type of computer people use as long as it gets the job done. However...
A co-worker uses a Mac. Up until yesterday he also had to use a PC, because while his Mac could run the Microsoft Access application critical to much of our work (provided he was running a virtual Windows machine), it couldn't connect to the Oracle database that sat behind the Access front-end.
So he ran both a PC and a Mac to get around this, until yesterday when he, a tech, and a senior tech spent two hours trying to establish a connection to a database. Eventually it succeeded, but at a conservative estimate the exercise cost somewhere in the vicinity of $200 to $300. That's purely in terms of wages, and doesn't take into account the things they didn't do during that time because they were concentrating on getting one Mac to duplicate the functions of an existing Windows machine.
All good now, though? Well, no, because now he has to get Lotus Notes working properly under the virtual Windows machine, because otherwise he has to deal with the Lotus web interface and its various idiosyncrasies. But at least now he's down to using only one computer (most of the time), and after another couple of hundred dollars in salaries are consumed, he might be able to do everything he wants on his Mac.
By running all the critical systems through a virtual Windows machine.
A co-worker uses a Mac. Up until yesterday he also had to use a PC, because while his Mac could run the Microsoft Access application critical to much of our work (provided he was running a virtual Windows machine), it couldn't connect to the Oracle database that sat behind the Access front-end.
So he ran both a PC and a Mac to get around this, until yesterday when he, a tech, and a senior tech spent two hours trying to establish a connection to a database. Eventually it succeeded, but at a conservative estimate the exercise cost somewhere in the vicinity of $200 to $300. That's purely in terms of wages, and doesn't take into account the things they didn't do during that time because they were concentrating on getting one Mac to duplicate the functions of an existing Windows machine.
All good now, though? Well, no, because now he has to get Lotus Notes working properly under the virtual Windows machine, because otherwise he has to deal with the Lotus web interface and its various idiosyncrasies. But at least now he's down to using only one computer (most of the time), and after another couple of hundred dollars in salaries are consumed, he might be able to do everything he wants on his Mac.
By running all the critical systems through a virtual Windows machine.
Stupidity and The War On Me
I believe I may have to kill Ted E. shortly. The system we use here is set up with a product-prices hierarchy - that is, the database (you knew this was going to involve databases at some point, didn't you?) contains a record for a particular product, with sub-records that reflect the different models under which it can be ordered, e.g. single user, 5-user etc.
I discovered a couple of weeks back that there was a particular product suite that was proving difficult to track because Ted E. had created it as a subset of another product from the same company (a quick analogy would be listing Microsoft Office as being a subset of Microsoft Word). I tried to convince him not to do this because it wasn't just contrary to how the database is supposed to work, it's just plain wrong. But he didn't want to change it, because that requires a lot messing about to update all the records.
So I create new product entires in the database to match what the orders should be, so he can use it for future reference (he wasn't interested in trying to understand the way the products were sold, so I had to set them up myself - no big problem, because at least that way I know they're done right).
Now I find the ignorant bugger is still doing it, "because that's how I did it last time". In other words, it's more convenient for him if he keeps entering incorrect data rather than apply a little brain power - not a lot, just selecting something from a drop-down list - and do it right.
And I know when I take this to him shortly and explain again what's gone wrong, two things will happen:
I discovered a couple of weeks back that there was a particular product suite that was proving difficult to track because Ted E. had created it as a subset of another product from the same company (a quick analogy would be listing Microsoft Office as being a subset of Microsoft Word). I tried to convince him not to do this because it wasn't just contrary to how the database is supposed to work, it's just plain wrong. But he didn't want to change it, because that requires a lot messing about to update all the records.
So I create new product entires in the database to match what the orders should be, so he can use it for future reference (he wasn't interested in trying to understand the way the products were sold, so I had to set them up myself - no big problem, because at least that way I know they're done right).
Now I find the ignorant bugger is still doing it, "because that's how I did it last time". In other words, it's more convenient for him if he keeps entering incorrect data rather than apply a little brain power - not a lot, just selecting something from a drop-down list - and do it right.
And I know when I take this to him shortly and explain again what's gone wrong, two things will happen:
- he'll react with injured innocence and repeat that he's just ordering it how it's always been ordered, and if we get the right stuff in the end, what's the harm?
- my blood pressure will soar, and I'll be fighting the urge to break office furniture over his head.
Cow-orker: the energizer bunny of stupidity
Cow-orker to an e-mail list reaching a dozen or so separate organisations:
"Hi everyone. We've received some documents under a non-disclosure agreement that we're concerned about. What do you think?"
And, sure enough, two of the three documents attached to the e-mail are clearly marked as being under NDA, not for circulation outside of vendor-controlled forums, etc.
This comes only a couple of months after she placed confidential vendor information on a publicly-accessible website because it was easier than relaying the information directly to the individuals affected by it.
"Hi everyone. We've received some documents under a non-disclosure agreement that we're concerned about. What do you think?"
And, sure enough, two of the three documents attached to the e-mail are clearly marked as being under NDA, not for circulation outside of vendor-controlled forums, etc.
This comes only a couple of months after she placed confidential vendor information on a publicly-accessible website because it was easier than relaying the information directly to the individuals affected by it.
The Crazy Man Revisited
Ten days ago a call went out on a closed, inter-organisational e-mail list asking for participants in a trial programme. Over the next day or two, a small handful volunteered to be guinea-pigs.
This morning the Crazy Man finally sends through his response. "Sorry for the late reply," he begins, "but I'm in a conference in Sydney and they're having trouble getting the wireless network connected..."
And the thing is - I'm not sure whether this is just a lame excuse (because even he can't pull off ten days of consecutive conference time), or if what he's making a Freudian slip and telling everyone he only replied at all because he isn't able to web-surf right now...
This morning the Crazy Man finally sends through his response. "Sorry for the late reply," he begins, "but I'm in a conference in Sydney and they're having trouble getting the wireless network connected..."
And the thing is - I'm not sure whether this is just a lame excuse (because even he can't pull off ten days of consecutive conference time), or if what he's making a Freudian slip and telling everyone he only replied at all because he isn't able to web-surf right now...
Cow-orker: you can lead a cow-orker to water ...
... but it's still illegal to drown them.*
"I want to send an e-mail to everyone saying they need to stop using this product and switch to products that I say are okay!"
"Wouldn't you rather just tell them they need to consider alternatives to the current product, and not get flamed by the users?"
"Um ... no, I don't think so. My way is better."
* From the archives.
"I want to send an e-mail to everyone saying they need to stop using this product and switch to products that I say are okay!"
"Wouldn't you rather just tell them they need to consider alternatives to the current product, and not get flamed by the users?"
"Um ... no, I don't think so. My way is better."
* From the archives.
So, yeah... I'm back.
The World of Warcraft ate my life. Sorry. Now back to the other things that eat my life, but are far less fun and can't be resolved by hitting them with a broadsword (except on a very temporary basis).
05 September, 2006
Ahhh! I kill you!
They say: "If you hit problems with this, don't spend more than a couple of hours on it. We're paying them for support we never use, so we may as well use it this time."
Two days later I say: "We don't know how to make it do this. None of the documentation even mentions it, so we don't know if it's even technically possible in the first place. Everything's on hold until we can get this resolved - can we call the company and get them to help us?"
They say: "Look it up on Google. We're not getting support in just to help you out."
Two days later I say: "We don't know how to make it do this. None of the documentation even mentions it, so we don't know if it's even technically possible in the first place. Everything's on hold until we can get this resolved - can we call the company and get them to help us?"
They say: "Look it up on Google. We're not getting support in just to help you out."
I'm still here
I have a workmate. Let's call him Ted E., because he talks just like Ted E. Bare
"This is quite complex. Earlier on you were looking at something that I've now decided looked like this, so I'll give this to you to work out."
I look at it. Get a headache. Make sense of it. I take it back to Ted E. and try to explain to him why it's complex and how it can be handled. Ted E. looks pained.
"Yes ... yes... All I was trying to show you was that it was complicated. So I've been doing it this way."
"This way", unfortunately, is the wrong way and involves labelling something as something else which it clearly isn't, and then trying to treat it as such. Not surprisingly this isn't working terribly well, hence the complexity of the problem he's raised.
"Well," I try to begin, "perhaps what we need to do is start by calling this what it is, and then building on that."
Ted E. looks confused. "But I've been doing it this way." (For some reason I begin getting flashbacks to Spinal Tap and their speakers that go up to 11.)
"That's what I'm saying. Maybe we need to look at doing it a different way that's a better reflection of what it actually is."
"That's why I was trying to show you how complicated it is, and why this is what I've been doing with it."
Let's try again. "It is complicated, which is why I think we need to consider doing it differently and treating it as something that's distinct from what it's been treated as so far."
Pause. Ted E. frowns slightly. "But this is what I've been doing with it."
He catches my look of pained frustration and misinterprets it completely. "It is very complicated, like I showed you. How about you go away for a while and think about the best way to tackle it?"
It's like wrestling with a giant sponge - as soon as I get tired of applying any pressure, he springs back into his original shape.
"This is quite complex. Earlier on you were looking at something that I've now decided looked like this, so I'll give this to you to work out."
I look at it. Get a headache. Make sense of it. I take it back to Ted E. and try to explain to him why it's complex and how it can be handled. Ted E. looks pained.
"Yes ... yes... All I was trying to show you was that it was complicated. So I've been doing it this way."
"This way", unfortunately, is the wrong way and involves labelling something as something else which it clearly isn't, and then trying to treat it as such. Not surprisingly this isn't working terribly well, hence the complexity of the problem he's raised.
"Well," I try to begin, "perhaps what we need to do is start by calling this what it is, and then building on that."
Ted E. looks confused. "But I've been doing it this way." (For some reason I begin getting flashbacks to Spinal Tap and their speakers that go up to 11.)
"That's what I'm saying. Maybe we need to look at doing it a different way that's a better reflection of what it actually is."
"That's why I was trying to show you how complicated it is, and why this is what I've been doing with it."
Let's try again. "It is complicated, which is why I think we need to consider doing it differently and treating it as something that's distinct from what it's been treated as so far."
Pause. Ted E. frowns slightly. "But this is what I've been doing with it."
He catches my look of pained frustration and misinterprets it completely. "It is very complicated, like I showed you. How about you go away for a while and think about the best way to tackle it?"
It's like wrestling with a giant sponge - as soon as I get tired of applying any pressure, he springs back into his original shape.
25 June, 2006
Not dead yet.
No, I'm not dead. Yes, I've been slack. But things have been happening, and I've been persistently unwell (over it now), and it's possible I may soon be leaving for Cow-orker free pastures once again (like I haven't tried that one before).
For the last few months I've been working two jobs - one, wrangling the Cow-orker; the other, doing similar work (minus Cow-orker wrangling) at another organisation. My week's been split in half between the two, which has limited my exposure to the Cow-orker. It also means that my working week now very clearly has a sane part, and a crazed, irrational part where my day is dominated by the Cow-orker and the Crazy Man. If I didn't know better, I'd swear someone was trying to conduct bizarre psychology experiments on me.
In fact I don't know better. Hmm...
Anyway, the two jobs situation looks set to end shortly (unless the Crazy Man pulls something bizarre and HR-related from someplace unthinkable) and in the near future I'll almost certainly be moving full-time to the sane workplace. It has its own quirks, to be sure, but there are no prominent Cow-orkers, Project Managers, or sequels to Project Death Spiral lurking in the offing. All I need for them to do now is to work out quite what they want me to do there on an ongoing basis. And then, of course, make sure it's an ongoing basis and not just something that wil evaporate at the end of the year.
But what this means is that once again (ha-hah) I'm facing the prospect of having dramatically less to post here.
This hasn't been helped by the fact that the Cow-orker herself has actually gone slightly sane. No, really. She's just separated from The Spouse, and the lack of mutual insanity at home seems to have made her slightly more rational at work. Slightly. And there are signs that it's wearing off already, so it's possible that she's going to continue her random acts of berserker stupidity in the workplace, but in different ways. But, as I've said, unless the Crazy Man acts fast to keep me there, I'm not going to be directly exposed to the madness.
So that's where things are at right now. There'll be a random smattering of updates to come as I begin ploughing through recent e-mails and catch up on things.
For the last few months I've been working two jobs - one, wrangling the Cow-orker; the other, doing similar work (minus Cow-orker wrangling) at another organisation. My week's been split in half between the two, which has limited my exposure to the Cow-orker. It also means that my working week now very clearly has a sane part, and a crazed, irrational part where my day is dominated by the Cow-orker and the Crazy Man. If I didn't know better, I'd swear someone was trying to conduct bizarre psychology experiments on me.
In fact I don't know better. Hmm...
Anyway, the two jobs situation looks set to end shortly (unless the Crazy Man pulls something bizarre and HR-related from someplace unthinkable) and in the near future I'll almost certainly be moving full-time to the sane workplace. It has its own quirks, to be sure, but there are no prominent Cow-orkers, Project Managers, or sequels to Project Death Spiral lurking in the offing. All I need for them to do now is to work out quite what they want me to do there on an ongoing basis. And then, of course, make sure it's an ongoing basis and not just something that wil evaporate at the end of the year.
But what this means is that once again (ha-hah) I'm facing the prospect of having dramatically less to post here.
This hasn't been helped by the fact that the Cow-orker herself has actually gone slightly sane. No, really. She's just separated from The Spouse, and the lack of mutual insanity at home seems to have made her slightly more rational at work. Slightly. And there are signs that it's wearing off already, so it's possible that she's going to continue her random acts of berserker stupidity in the workplace, but in different ways. But, as I've said, unless the Crazy Man acts fast to keep me there, I'm not going to be directly exposed to the madness.
So that's where things are at right now. There'll be a random smattering of updates to come as I begin ploughing through recent e-mails and catch up on things.
16 May, 2006
Cow-orker: Client torture
Hot off the phone to the dentist, the Cow-orker is wondering why a client is giving her grief for giving him instructions for installing software that can't possibly work on his computer.
I try to explain to her the reason the instructions she's given him can't possibly work on his computer: she knows he's using a Mac, yet she keeps giving him instructions for installing the software under Windows with the advice that "but this is how it works under Windows!" and is struggling to grasp why he doesn't find this helpful. Because his response ("This won't work for me because it doesn't work this way on a Mac") isn't enough of a hint.
She's dismissed him as being too much of a pain to deal with, and has gone to morning tea to de-stress from the whole situation.
I try to explain to her the reason the instructions she's given him can't possibly work on his computer: she knows he's using a Mac, yet she keeps giving him instructions for installing the software under Windows with the advice that "but this is how it works under Windows!" and is struggling to grasp why he doesn't find this helpful. Because his response ("This won't work for me because it doesn't work this way on a Mac") isn't enough of a hint.
She's dismissed him as being too much of a pain to deal with, and has gone to morning tea to de-stress from the whole situation.
Cow-orker: medical histories
The Spawn has a dental appointment after a checkup revealed it needed a vast amount of fillings. Despite The Spawn's sugar-rich diet, the Cow-orker seems surprised and has been on the phone to the dentist for the last fifteen minutes.
So far the hapless dentist has been advised that The Spawn is an "exceptionally perceptive" child, and that the dentist shouldn't make the mistake of treating the wunderkind like any normal five-year old. Apparently comforting lies are okay, however, as the Cow-orker has been telling The Spawn that having half-a-dozen fillings won't hurt and she won't feel a thing. The trouble is, she's just discovered from talking to the dentist that it will, in fact, hurt (anaesthetic needles still being needles, after all) and is trying to get the dentist to give her a way out of the situation.
Exactly how she expects this to work is unclear.
In a flashback to the memorable day when the Cow-orker told me her mother once had a tooth growing out her nose, the dentist has also been treated to an extended discussion of the Cow-orker's teeth, her family's teeth, and those of The Spouse and his whole family.
(It seems his family suffers from a hillbilly-like congenital defect that leads to broken, missing and discoloured teeth. Alternatively it could just be that they are hillbillies, and simply drink and smoke to excess and rot their teeth in their heads. Or maybe it's something to do with the aliens that have been hanging around their backyard.)
Eventually the phone call reaches its point. I think. It seems that the Cow-orker is less concerned with The Spawn's dental welfare than with establishing a plan of attack for when The Spawn realises Mummy & Daddy lied about the dentist not hurting. The plan she's aiming for is to have the dentist accept all the blame for the lies.
So far the hapless dentist has been advised that The Spawn is an "exceptionally perceptive" child, and that the dentist shouldn't make the mistake of treating the wunderkind like any normal five-year old. Apparently comforting lies are okay, however, as the Cow-orker has been telling The Spawn that having half-a-dozen fillings won't hurt and she won't feel a thing. The trouble is, she's just discovered from talking to the dentist that it will, in fact, hurt (anaesthetic needles still being needles, after all) and is trying to get the dentist to give her a way out of the situation.
Exactly how she expects this to work is unclear.
In a flashback to the memorable day when the Cow-orker told me her mother once had a tooth growing out her nose, the dentist has also been treated to an extended discussion of the Cow-orker's teeth, her family's teeth, and those of The Spouse and his whole family.
(It seems his family suffers from a hillbilly-like congenital defect that leads to broken, missing and discoloured teeth. Alternatively it could just be that they are hillbillies, and simply drink and smoke to excess and rot their teeth in their heads. Or maybe it's something to do with the aliens that have been hanging around their backyard.)
Eventually the phone call reaches its point. I think. It seems that the Cow-orker is less concerned with The Spawn's dental welfare than with establishing a plan of attack for when The Spawn realises Mummy & Daddy lied about the dentist not hurting. The plan she's aiming for is to have the dentist accept all the blame for the lies.
01 May, 2006
Cow-orker: suffer the children
"Ohmygod ohmygod! The Spawn got in trouble at school for the same thing she did last week! What's wrong with this misbegotten child?"
And she leaps onto the phone to ring around her family and mobilise them so they can all unite in condemnation of The Spawn and impress on her what an awful child she is for acting like a five-year-old rather than the child prodigy she's supposed to be. (Because there's nothing like a consolidated effort at scarring a child for life to encourage good behaviour).
[And in the middle of all this, the Secondary Cow-orker is telling me all about her latest mobile phone plan and why she chose it. My eardrums are under siege from all sides.]
Listening to the Cow-orker bewailing having given birth to the Antichrist, it becomes very clear that she's actually scared of the hyper-intelligent Spawn and is frightened of having to deal with a childish temper tantrum.
You just know The Spawn is going to grow up to be a serial killer.
And she leaps onto the phone to ring around her family and mobilise them so they can all unite in condemnation of The Spawn and impress on her what an awful child she is for acting like a five-year-old rather than the child prodigy she's supposed to be. (Because there's nothing like a consolidated effort at scarring a child for life to encourage good behaviour).
[And in the middle of all this, the Secondary Cow-orker is telling me all about her latest mobile phone plan and why she chose it. My eardrums are under siege from all sides.]
Listening to the Cow-orker bewailing having given birth to the Antichrist, it becomes very clear that she's actually scared of the hyper-intelligent Spawn and is frightened of having to deal with a childish temper tantrum.
You just know The Spawn is going to grow up to be a serial killer.
Marketing strike again
"But this is terrible! All the prices we just mailed out to 7,000 new clients are wrong!"
"Why didn't you check the prices first?"
"Because this is what they were last year when we were buying them through a different supplier!"
The marketing manager then begins to panic and spin an elaborate story about how, in the past, the other supplier gave us a special price on these items at the start of each year, and maybe if the new supplier gives us the same special price that will help her cover up that she messed up majorly this time. Two problems with that, though: we didn't carry this stuff at all before last year, and the old supplier didn't do anything of the sort.
The marketing manager gibbers some more and tries to claim it's not her fault that she didn't check any of the information before she sent it out to people.
I think this may even be the first time I've actually seen someone think their way into a state of self-delusion aloud and in front of others... Even the Cow-orker tends to get by with making huge and painful leaps of Cow-orker logic inside her head.
"Why didn't you check the prices first?"
"Because this is what they were last year when we were buying them through a different supplier!"
The marketing manager then begins to panic and spin an elaborate story about how, in the past, the other supplier gave us a special price on these items at the start of each year, and maybe if the new supplier gives us the same special price that will help her cover up that she messed up majorly this time. Two problems with that, though: we didn't carry this stuff at all before last year, and the old supplier didn't do anything of the sort.
The marketing manager gibbers some more and tries to claim it's not her fault that she didn't check any of the information before she sent it out to people.
I think this may even be the first time I've actually seen someone think their way into a state of self-delusion aloud and in front of others... Even the Cow-orker tends to get by with making huge and painful leaps of Cow-orker logic inside her head.
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