The squeakiest hinge gets the oil first
What a shitty, shitty day at work. It's days like these that make me wonder what the fuck am I doing here and is it all worth it?
There's nothing that compares to being made to feel like you've done absolutely nothing when all you've ever done is work your ass off. Have you ever sat with your CIO and when you answered his questions on what are the issues for this project, he turned around and basically told you to do the things that you've been doing for the past two months? Well I have. And it's not pretty.
See I work for a company where our escalation tactic is to scream and shout at the highest VP you can find to strongarm them to giving you what you want need. So if I talked to a vendor, and the vendor basically said such and such items are not available, it's not good enough for me to just take their word. Fine, I can understand that.
But even after asking for second and third opinions from the vendor, and still getting the same answer, wouldn't you naturally think it's just not available? In my corporate culture, here's how the rest of the conversation went:
CIO: Did you escalate it with their Project Manager?
Me: Yes, sir, I did. I just told you we spoke to three people who confirmed that they don't have such item in their possession.
CIO: Well then, this should be brought to the attention of their VP.
Me: ? What for?
CIO: They need to provide us with the item!
Me: So this should be escalated to their VP? Do you think the VP has the item in his possession?
CIO: If not, he would know to get the right people who will have it.
Me: But I've spoken with half of the people in that department and none of them has the item, and confirmed that such thing doesn't exist in their company.
CIO: I'll have our business sponsor call the VP tomorrow.
How should I feel at that moment? Ideally, I should just say, "Yeah, okay sir, if that's what it takes to convince you".
But in reality, I was just livid to hear such response. It's like whatever I did was still not good enough even though I've already bent over backwards to try to get it, because I'd known the importance of having the item. I was offended at the whole thing, and it got me really worked up for the rest of the day. If I had any humor left at all, I would say it's like finding myself stuck in Dilbert-land...
There's nothing that compares to being made to feel like you've done absolutely nothing when all you've ever done is work your ass off. Have you ever sat with your CIO and when you answered his questions on what are the issues for this project, he turned around and basically told you to do the things that you've been doing for the past two months? Well I have. And it's not pretty.
See I work for a company where our escalation tactic is to scream and shout at the highest VP you can find to strongarm them to giving you what you want need. So if I talked to a vendor, and the vendor basically said such and such items are not available, it's not good enough for me to just take their word. Fine, I can understand that.
But even after asking for second and third opinions from the vendor, and still getting the same answer, wouldn't you naturally think it's just not available? In my corporate culture, here's how the rest of the conversation went:
CIO: Did you escalate it with their Project Manager?
Me: Yes, sir, I did. I just told you we spoke to three people who confirmed that they don't have such item in their possession.
CIO: Well then, this should be brought to the attention of their VP.
Me: ? What for?
CIO: They need to provide us with the item!
Me: So this should be escalated to their VP? Do you think the VP has the item in his possession?
CIO: If not, he would know to get the right people who will have it.
Me: But I've spoken with half of the people in that department and none of them has the item, and confirmed that such thing doesn't exist in their company.
CIO: I'll have our business sponsor call the VP tomorrow.
How should I feel at that moment? Ideally, I should just say, "Yeah, okay sir, if that's what it takes to convince you".
But in reality, I was just livid to hear such response. It's like whatever I did was still not good enough even though I've already bent over backwards to try to get it, because I'd known the importance of having the item. I was offended at the whole thing, and it got me really worked up for the rest of the day. If I had any humor left at all, I would say it's like finding myself stuck in Dilbert-land...