Didn't take long at all

by doyce at 01:44 AM on October 31, 2002

Allow me to translate one of my work-related emails for the lay-folk:

Good afternoon,

You people are so shockingly dim that I feel compelled to help you out by starting this message with a reminder of what time of day it is. You're welcome.

I understand from our client that an email having to do with scheduling setup and training for [software product we're supposed to interface with] was sent out from [designer of software] to everyone involved with the current install.

You simpering orangutans -- I had to find out from our client, who by rights should have been told about it by ME, not the other way around.

I didn't receive the email.

By this, I can only conclude that either a) you were too lazy to read the email at all or b) too self-absorbed to realize that the project manager for the client in question wasn't on the "To:" line and should have been.

In the future, if an email is sent out that has to do with a client I'm responsible for as a project manager and it doesn't include me in the recipient list, please forward it along to me so I have a better idea as to what's going on.

In the future, do something vaguely resembling your job. Better yet, pretend you're even awake. For chrissake, you even told the client that you hadn't bothered to read the email.

(Of course, I didn't know I wasn't getting the emails until someone at the site asked about them -- I can certainly cover it up, but it would have been better if I had known what they were talking about).

If you leave me hanging out to dry like that again, I will stress-test your well-padded ass with a 20 lb. sledgehammer and a pack of Scotts lawn fertilizer spikes.

Related to that: if we're going to market this new software package as a good fit to go along with [our software], I would like to attend training on it before I have to support it at the site.

I can look like an idiot all by myself, thanks ever so much. With a little forewarning, I can actually avoid that experience nine times out of ten.

We sold the client on using [this software] with [our software], but the only employee from our office at their office this week knows nothing about [this software] or about what will and won't work once the interface is in. It doesn't look good and blows customer confidence.

I realize that the myopic, narcissistic nature of the human DNA strands that gives rise to salesmen means that I'll never really get this point across, but you can't simply sell whatever package has a pretty website and send it out the door. These people sign a minimum one-year service and training agreement, and I sit less than twenty feet from you. If you don't have any common sense, at least exercise your survival instinct.

I don't mind being put on the spot for project management issues,

I am a goddamn liar, but I'm trying to be reasonable.

but I need to be in the loop on organizational emails and familiar with the third-party software I'm required to support.

It would take several acts of several gods to keep me in this company any longer than absolutely necessary. You are dead to me.