…and learning who to avoid. I have a coworker who falls in that category. I don’t give her the cold shoulder, but I won’t go to her for help, either. I have 10 other people I can turn to, so it’s not like I’m shooting myself in the foot with that. As one other person mentioned, “She just runs hot and cold and I don’t feel like having to guess her mood” Yep. This is also the same coworker that did help me with a call, and then a week later, told me I had done it wrong, forgetting that she had worked with me on it. I’m also discovering she has a bit of a proclivity towards being a tattletale, which is such a lovely trait in a 50-something woman. She seems to think she isn’t really being mean when she is truly being horrid, because she is soft-spoken w/ a southern accent. You probably know someone like this.
Today I get an IM…
“Can I call you about Client X and his tax interface?”
“Sure, but I don’t know why, but go ahead!” (At this point I don’t remember talking to him about the tax interface.)
She calls. I ask her why she needs me of all people. She tells me she has my call notes in front of her.
Well, that helps me zero. How about a date or a client number that I can look up??
So, I find the call - and yes, I do remember it, once I see the notes. Oh, and it’s from JULY. No wonder I didn’t remember it right off the bat.
Tax prep vendor told Client X, “You need this patch that your software company has just put out.”, so he calls, and gets me.
Now, I investigated a bit, the patch in question is for V4.0 software, Client X has V3.0 software, so that patch won’t work for him. So I hunt high and low for what Client X needs, can’t find it, go to our manager, she can’t find it, has to call development, they send it to her and she sends it to me and I send it to him. Life is good, call is closed.
Fast forward three months.
Well, now, he is getting word back from one of the taxing authorities that something ain’t right. Coworker is assuming that it must be what I sent him.
“I can’t get that function to even work in the V3.0 database, and I can’t find it anywhere and I don’t know how you could have sent it to him. You do realize he’s a 3.0 client?”
Yes, it’s quite clear in all my call notes that I had to find the executable for V3.0 and that is what I sent. I can see where she is going with this. She is thinking I sent a V4.0 executable to a V3.0 client. I may be new, but I’m not that friggin dumb.
I tell her about having to get it from the manager. I can tell she is still thinking I didn’t send a 3.0 version, because she can’t find it anywhere. I explain to her that it wasn’t in the normal/public places because it was an add-on or something special/different like that - couldn’t remember the exact wording, except that it was in the email from the manager, and there was a reason that it wasn’t in the general release area. She tells me they wouldn’t do that, even if it was “special”, it would be in the normal places. Finally, I get off the phone w/her telling her I will find the email from the manager and forward it to her.
About a minute later, I am very happily forwarding the email from my manager, with the trail from dev, saying that it IS the 3.0 executable, and it’s not in general release because it is considered “custom” for 3.0. I IM the info on it being custom as I forward it to her. She reads the email first, then responds, “Yes, I can see that.”
I am sure she is exceptionally disappointed that not only did I send the right executable for the right version, but that I worked with the manager on it, so I know I did it right.**** She seemed way too eager to point out that the executable didn’t exist for V3.0…
Written down, it sounds more petty than anything, so you’d have to know her to understand just how incredibly bitchy she can be. The upside is that she only works 4 days a week, and every other week, she telecommutes.
****The executable may have had a bug in it, but that is development & QC’s problem - it’s what they told us to send out.
