Borderline Retarded

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I am feeling a ridiculous amount of stress right now. I have been trying to get a project completed with a tech support person at our payroll service for the last two weeks. I made a mistake when first sending the info over in not saying "I need it done yesterday". I guess I was working under the assumption that this guy would work the same as other people at his company have for me in the past. I've never even needed to tell them a "timeframe". I send the information, they work on it and it is back to me in a couple of days. No problems.

I sent the whole package over to my normal contact person, and she forwarded the project on to one of the people working under her. The first thing he did was call me and ask when I needed this by. That's where I feel that I dropped the ball completely. I am not used to those type of questions, and silly me, I hate to be an authority figure of any type. My boss was gone that entire week, and he hadn't told me a timeframe either. I remember telling the guy that I wanted it in 2 weeks. Technically, I should have been able to expect this done by this Friday.

My boss came back on Monday, and asked for the status. I talked to me pal at the payroll service, and he told me he hadn't looked at it yet. Not too surprising to me - I can't imagine that it is very difficult to make the changes we need and he thought he had until Friday to complete it. My boss told me this morning to call and find out if we could have it done today. The Tech says to me "From our conversation, I thought I had months and months to work on it." I didn't even know what to say. On Tuesday, he said he would have it done in 2 days. I can't squeeze blood out of a stone; if he can't do it today, he can't do it.

I sit here now almost quaking in fear that my boss is going to call the payroll service and rip this guy a new one. I told my boss that it was my fault for not being more clear with the guy - but this is also not the level of customer service I am used to . I'm all for accepting people just as they are - but this guy is too "tech". He's not enough "people". In the conversation I just has with him, he asked me the "drop dead date" three times. Each time I told him "TODAY!!". Three times he asked me! I'm not sure he's even listening!

This is how our conversation ended:

Tech: "Why don't you take a look at it, see if there are any changes that need to be made, and call me back later".

Um, Isn't that exactly what I asked him to do a week and a half ago?

I talked to our "tech" guy here in the office. I told him what was going on and he had zero sympathy for the payroll service guy. I figured he would at least play devil's advocate for one of his brethren, but I must have caught him on a bad day.

Eegads. I am mortified by this situation - there is obviously something wrong with me if I am this upset about whether a complete stranger likes me or not because of how this situation turns out.

1 Comments:

  • There is nothing wrong with you, but you do have an overabudance of sympathy! You shouldn't worry about whether your boss calls to complain to/ about the tech guy; it sounds like somebody needs to! You've done your job; he hasn't done his. I hope this resolves soon.

    By Blogger BadassMama, at 9:08 AM  

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