What comes between Friday and Tuesday morning?
To be honest, the lunacy that is Sarah Palin was just the freakin' cherry on the top of my day yesterday--just the final proof that the world has gone mad.
Yesterday morning, I go into work and there is a file in my bin. I take a quick glance, see that the deadline for it is 9/5, and think, okee dokee, perfectly managable. I can fit this in and make the deadline no problem.
Then the phone rings.
It's the sales rep.
"How quickly can you get this done?" he inquires innocently.
"Um, well, it has a due date of next Friday, but you'll have it well before then," says I, with confidence.
"Right. Well. I really do need it before then..."
I hear his words trail off. This does not bode well. Not at all.
Because, see, this is a holiday weekend. It's also the holiday weekend that I dread the most, because it's the holiday weekend where we leave the office in August, but when we come back, it's September. And this is a bad thing, because the sales reps have yet to grasp the concept that there is not as expansive a period of time between the sleepy, laid back end of August and the invariably crazy first of September as they may perceive. It's like they spend the entire week before Labor Day leaning back in their chairs, with their feet up on their desks, drinking coffee and schmoozing on the phone and setting up arrangements as to who is bringing the beer to the Cape May beach house for the three/four day party...until the DAY before we all go home for the holiday. Suddenly the soles of their unnaturally shiny shoes hit the floor and they scream, "Oh my GOD!!! We won't be back until SEPTEMBER!!!" And they consult their palm pilots long enough to realize that they have a bunch of stuff due BEFORE September, and none of it is done. In fact, none of it has even been submitted. And so the flood of files fly through the air from sales to underwriting, followed swiftly by the whining and begging to turn a 5 day turn around time into a 24 hour turn around time.
And to make things even MORE obnoxious, this whining and begging is usually coming from them on their cell phones as they drive their way to the shore for THEIR holiday. Which only adds insult to injury.
It never fails. It happens every year. The only way to avoid it is to flee the building and take PTO yourself for at least the day before the holiday--preferably TWO days. Because if you actually WORK those days?
You're going to get nailed.
So yeah, this normally OK sales rep is on my phone the day before the holiday, telling me he needs a case completed "a bit early".
"OK. Just exactly when do you need it?"
"Well, um...first thing Tuesday morning?"
My head explodes, but I maintain my composure.
"Sooooo....what you're saying, in essence, is that you need me to work over the holiday weekend in order to get your case done. Am I reading you correctly?"
"Oh, NO!! No, no, no, no, no! I would never ask you to do that!"
I breathe, blind with rage.
"No, that's exactly what you're asking me to do. Because, please, if there is something that comes between Friday late morning and first thing Tuesday morning on the last weekend in August OTHER than Labor Day weekend, I'd really like to be enlightened as to what it might be."
"Oh, but I couldn't ask you to work the holiday!" he opines.
"Oh, but you CAN. Because you just DID."
His denial of this grave sin continues, unabated and histrionic.
I finally stop him. "Listen, I'm asking you to manage your broker's expectations. That's your job, and if you have to debase yourself and tell him that you blew off his case until this morning, then that's what you'll have to do." I take a breath. "And you tell him that I will have this in your hands by no later than close of business on Tuesday, and that if he will grant me this boon, I will present the most competitive quote I can, and it will be accurate. But I will not be bullied or whined into not taking my holiday, because we are about to enter the season when you boys will really begin beating us up, and I will do that somewhat refreshed. Also, I will not be rushed into making mistakes because you spaced this group, because I know that, if you find mistakes, you will not point to the fact that I am doing five days worth of work in one day, you will bemoan the stupidity of the underwriting department to your broker, saving your own face by rubbing mine in the dirt."
Silence.
"Are we clear?"
"yup, got it..."
"Good. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to get off the phone and get started so that I'm not here till midnight. OK?"
"OK."
"Besides, you have a phone call to make, yes?"
So when the boss came around letting us know that we were allowed to go early, I looked at him with such a poisonous eye as to frighten him. I told him the deal, and his face went stony, but, really...what are you going to do? What possible recourse does one have when the only person who would really lose by your holding your own and digging your heels in is the person who has nothing to do with the mess?
So while I was not the very last person to leave, I was the one who worked a full day while the others left two hours early--the ones I left behind came into the office after me in the morning.
Oh, and the case?
It's done, and passed along to my checker, who now has a full day to look it over, because I was not going to pass the unfair along to HER.
But next year? I'm taking the day off.
Happy Long Weekend.
Yesterday morning, I go into work and there is a file in my bin. I take a quick glance, see that the deadline for it is 9/5, and think, okee dokee, perfectly managable. I can fit this in and make the deadline no problem.
Then the phone rings.
It's the sales rep.
"How quickly can you get this done?" he inquires innocently.
"Um, well, it has a due date of next Friday, but you'll have it well before then," says I, with confidence.
"Right. Well. I really do need it before then..."
I hear his words trail off. This does not bode well. Not at all.
Because, see, this is a holiday weekend. It's also the holiday weekend that I dread the most, because it's the holiday weekend where we leave the office in August, but when we come back, it's September. And this is a bad thing, because the sales reps have yet to grasp the concept that there is not as expansive a period of time between the sleepy, laid back end of August and the invariably crazy first of September as they may perceive. It's like they spend the entire week before Labor Day leaning back in their chairs, with their feet up on their desks, drinking coffee and schmoozing on the phone and setting up arrangements as to who is bringing the beer to the Cape May beach house for the three/four day party...until the DAY before we all go home for the holiday. Suddenly the soles of their unnaturally shiny shoes hit the floor and they scream, "Oh my GOD!!! We won't be back until SEPTEMBER!!!" And they consult their palm pilots long enough to realize that they have a bunch of stuff due BEFORE September, and none of it is done. In fact, none of it has even been submitted. And so the flood of files fly through the air from sales to underwriting, followed swiftly by the whining and begging to turn a 5 day turn around time into a 24 hour turn around time.
And to make things even MORE obnoxious, this whining and begging is usually coming from them on their cell phones as they drive their way to the shore for THEIR holiday. Which only adds insult to injury.
It never fails. It happens every year. The only way to avoid it is to flee the building and take PTO yourself for at least the day before the holiday--preferably TWO days. Because if you actually WORK those days?
You're going to get nailed.
So yeah, this normally OK sales rep is on my phone the day before the holiday, telling me he needs a case completed "a bit early".
"OK. Just exactly when do you need it?"
"Well, um...first thing Tuesday morning?"
My head explodes, but I maintain my composure.
"Sooooo....what you're saying, in essence, is that you need me to work over the holiday weekend in order to get your case done. Am I reading you correctly?"
"Oh, NO!! No, no, no, no, no! I would never ask you to do that!"
I breathe, blind with rage.
"No, that's exactly what you're asking me to do. Because, please, if there is something that comes between Friday late morning and first thing Tuesday morning on the last weekend in August OTHER than Labor Day weekend, I'd really like to be enlightened as to what it might be."
"Oh, but I couldn't ask you to work the holiday!" he opines.
"Oh, but you CAN. Because you just DID."
His denial of this grave sin continues, unabated and histrionic.
I finally stop him. "Listen, I'm asking you to manage your broker's expectations. That's your job, and if you have to debase yourself and tell him that you blew off his case until this morning, then that's what you'll have to do." I take a breath. "And you tell him that I will have this in your hands by no later than close of business on Tuesday, and that if he will grant me this boon, I will present the most competitive quote I can, and it will be accurate. But I will not be bullied or whined into not taking my holiday, because we are about to enter the season when you boys will really begin beating us up, and I will do that somewhat refreshed. Also, I will not be rushed into making mistakes because you spaced this group, because I know that, if you find mistakes, you will not point to the fact that I am doing five days worth of work in one day, you will bemoan the stupidity of the underwriting department to your broker, saving your own face by rubbing mine in the dirt."
Silence.
"Are we clear?"
"yup, got it..."
"Good. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to get off the phone and get started so that I'm not here till midnight. OK?"
"OK."
"Besides, you have a phone call to make, yes?"
So when the boss came around letting us know that we were allowed to go early, I looked at him with such a poisonous eye as to frighten him. I told him the deal, and his face went stony, but, really...what are you going to do? What possible recourse does one have when the only person who would really lose by your holding your own and digging your heels in is the person who has nothing to do with the mess?
So while I was not the very last person to leave, I was the one who worked a full day while the others left two hours early--the ones I left behind came into the office after me in the morning.
Oh, and the case?
It's done, and passed along to my checker, who now has a full day to look it over, because I was not going to pass the unfair along to HER.
But next year? I'm taking the day off.
Happy Long Weekend.