Ugly day at work

[cards2468]

Yelling at a US Government official, lying to them and claiming they threw you under a bus isn't a great way to treat your customer.

Heads will roll for this one.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Need the full story.

[cards2468]

So my job is to be a USG rep on site so that I can give my approval for nonconforming products to be used on aircraft being sold to the Government. Contractually it states that the Government will try to approve or reject the document within 2 weeks. Because I'm so accomodating to the contractor because I understand the importance of keeping production moving, my documents are approved/rejected typically within a day. This means I review the document for accuracy, then speak with strength engineers that show me their analysis and I determine if their methods of analysis are good and also to inspect the part on the floor all within the same day. I typically review about 100 documents a month.

Two documents hit my queue this morning at 6:30AM. This individual stopped by my office around 9:30 AM asking for me to approve those documents to which I tell him, "I will get to them soon". Being the end of the month, I am bombarded with work since they're trying to meet quota and I'm trying to write a monthly report (requires a lot of data analysis, I'll easily spend 16 hours working on this), but I still always make time to take care of the nonconformances when I'm in the middle of working on the monthly report. So my plan was to keep working on the report, and then around 11 I'd try to quickly take care of them.

At 10:30, he comes into my office asking why they aren't approved yet. I tell him I'll get to them soon. He then says "Well last time you said you were going to take care of them immediately." I told him I did not say that, and that I will get to them soon. I also explained to him that I work for the government, not for his company, and that work for my agency will always be a higher priority than any of his stuff. He starts raising his voice at me and I said (probably shouldn't have said this) "Keep it up and I won't look at it until tomorrow." He then claims I'm throwing him under a bus, we keep yelling at each other, eventually I yell at him, "Don't you ever come in my office like this again!" and he stormed out.

I called my boss, he had me write a summary of what occured in a letter and sign it. The co-worker I share my office with was here for it so he also wrote his take and signed it. My boss has his downfalls, but one thing he has right is that if anybody wrongs any of his employees, he will destroy them.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Sweet. I thought maybe you lost it and were going to get in trouble for it. It's way better this way. Still get the story and you're not in trouble. Gracias for that.

[cards2468]

I should be fine. I've been doing my job the way my boss wants me to do it, and he'll defend me all the way as long as I'm doing that.


They're also in the process of massive lay offs here. Two excellent individuals who were among the small handful of employees of the contractor that do good work and are trustworthy were laid off today. Everybody around here seems very depressed and everybody in middle management is trying to hide as if that will somehow save them from being laid off.

[Spider John]

Uppity government bureaucrats bring out the worst in everybody.

[Hungary Jack]

Falling Down II?

[tlombard]

It will be what everybody here considers garbage beer but after this week (especially today), I've decided that I'm going to the bar after work and I'm not just drinking beer. I'm drinking ALL the beer. Every one they have on hand or I pass out at the bar. Whichever comes first.

I swear that as soon as I schedule a day off everybody gets together and coordinates bombarding me right after lunch with urgent requests for data that they need by the end of the day so they can finish what they need for meetings on Monday with our head of North American Operations.

I absolutely KNOW they've had plenty of time to work on all of this but they have meetings where they have to present it all on Monday and they all wait until the last minute figuring that as long they get the data from me today, they can finish their stuff tomorrow and be ready. And of course since he's the one ultimately needing the data they procrastinate because they can throw his name out there and everybody puts it at the top of their list and they get it on time.

Well, not me anymore. I have six different people coming at me all wanting me to put theirs at the top of my list because it's for the big guy. Sorry, can't happen. I'll do what I can and stay a little late but I will be at the bar when the Blues game starts and whatever isn't done isn't getting done until Monday. I promised nobody anything. I've already got too much that needs to be done even before their last minute requests.

[GeddyWrox]

It will be what everybody here considers garbage beer but after this week (especially today), I've decided that I'm going to the bar after work and I'm not just drinking beer. I'm drinking ALL the beer. Every one they have on hand or I pass out at the bar. Whichever comes first.

I swear that as soon as I schedule a day off everybody gets together and coordinates bombarding me right after lunch with urgent requests for data that they need by the end of the day so they can finish what they need for meetings on Monday with our head of North American Operations.

I absolutely KNOW they've had plenty of time to work on all of this but they have meetings where they have to present it all on Monday and they all wait until the last minute figuring that as long they get the data from me today, they can finish their stuff tomorrow and be ready. And of course since he's the one ultimately needing the data they procrastinate because they can throw his name out there and everybody puts it at the top of their list and they get it on time.

Well, not me anymore. I have six different people coming at me all wanting me to put theirs at the top of my list because it's for the big guy. Sorry, can't happen. I'll do what I can and stay a little late but I will be at the bar when the Blues game starts and whatever isn't done isn't getting done until Monday. I promised nobody anything. I've already got too much that needs to be done even before their last minute requests.

Been there, man.

At one point at a former job, I had a sign tacked up on my cube wall that said "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine."

[tlombard]

In my early years here I was a sales support rep and supported a field sales rep who insisted every single order was a rush and wanted it moved to the front of the line in packaging. After the first couple NOTHING he needed was ever rushed once we figured out that was how it was going to be. He'd say it was but nobody treated it any differently than anything else. It became a joke when I'd send the configurations through to packaging and labeling. There was always a crack made about it being a 'bloody rush' and putting it at the front of the line. He never even realized that we weren't rushing anything and just going through the normal processes and queued up in line like every other order.

Thankfully my boss is awesome and gets it and I won't get any grief if it doesn't all get done before I leave. Heck she's out in San Diego and doesn't even know about any of the requests because they've come straight to me so unless somebody complains she'll never even know what I've done or not done. But even if they were to complain, I've got the email chains where the request came in after lunch today and I immediately told them in no uncertain terms that I can't promise anything before Monday. I'm not even staying late on purpose tonight. A friend is going to the bar to watch the game with me but he's working from home today so I'm only staying here until he is on his way. Since he goes right past the office he's just going to pick me up from here. If he shows up now then I'll leave. If it is two hours from now that's fine, I'll just get as much as I can done so I don't have to worry about it later (which would probably be all but one thing). Make no mistake though, I'm leaving here before long and heading straight to the bar to start my long weekend and drink way too much tonight.

Thankfully a few of the requests that seemed like a whole lot of work initially turned out to be a lot easier to handle once I walked away from my desk for a few minutes to grab a snack and thought things through a bit more.

I'm taking tomorrow off to spend the day with Jen since I still have three weeks of vacation left to use and only two months to use it but we don't have concrete plans yet and lord knows I'll end up waiting on her to be ready anyway. Might as well finish up the rest so I'm not stressing about it over the weekend or coming in super early Monday to get it wrapped up.