I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

One of those days

I don't often do a whole post on the day jobbery, but today was bad. And for no real reason except some people are upset they got the grand pee pee whack yesterday. It was a self-inflicted wound. It really was a minor correction, basically saying, "No, that isn't correct, you will do it this way."

Well, some people are not much more emotionally advanced than 2-year olds, especially in business. Today was the corporate equivalent of, "I won't eat my peas, I will show you just how horrible I can be about it." It also has to do with corporate change management.

What they don't understand is that what happened was only a minor correction and they're spoiling to have an elbow thrown.

"Look," I wanted to say, "you're out of your weight class here. No, this isn't because of your communication issues (of which they've blamed problems on before), this isn't because 'I don't know your business.' This is about your deliberate attempt to sabotage the work. I have your emails to prove it. Say, like the train where you're looking at the same piece of art, and it's wonderful, but you think I missed adding something. When I explain, 'No, it's right there," (a "tag" line which doesn't need to be in anybody's face, it's just a corporate requirement) suddenly you don't think you can approve the design because you don't like it? But thanks for asking the third party for us. Oh, BTW, this 3rd party (another company) isn't doing us any favors by allowing us to showcase their tech in our booth. We purchase their product and offer it as an extension to our own offerings. We're helping them out. And this is our booth."

Yes, they were all ready to "approve" the art when they thought is was "wrong." Then when they discover that I did it correctly, suddenly they don't like it. All in the space of 10 minutes.

I'm sure they didn't like it when, after they cc'ed some of their executive chain (who, BTW, were also involved in the correction) gloating on how I missed a standard communications piece, that I also included those executives in my response where I proved they were wrong. But thems the rules they set up. I thought I was very polite in correcting you.

Sometimes you need to throw an elbow. Their mental problems are not my fire drill.

1 comment:

Steve Buchheit said...

Wow, financial spam as the first comment on this post. Really? Do you really like poking the bear, dude. I may not have the mad skillz as my friend Jim Wright, but that's not to say I'm not a dangerous person to provoke. Or do I have to mention my book shelf with networking and crypto texts, some of them quite deep into the geekery mind.

Go peddle your shyster services elsewhere.