I Want to Find Some Laughter, When You Laugh They Can’t Kill You
Friday. I would give the usual "Yeah!" but this Friday has felt like a Monday. A bad Monday. A bad Monday under a full moon. A bad Monday under a full moon in which I walked under a ladder and by thirteen black cats as I came into the office today. Things have just gone wrong from the start and I am getting the feeling that I shouldn't have even bothered getting out of bed. I won't give you all the whole laundry list of everything I've had to deal with today, but I will share one item that has particularly irked me to the full extent:
About a month ago I got a non-approved supplier purchase request in the tune of around $84k. Since the vendor is unapproved (meaning that we have no pre-existing sales deals set up with them), there is a bunch of bureaucratic hoops we in the financial department have to jump through before we can approve these orders. So, I called the vendor at the time and told their Director of Sales that in order for us to place this order we would need to negotiate better payment terms and that we would need to get a copy of their product liability insurance naming us as additionally insured to cover our risk as a reseller. The guy said no problem and I faxed over our credit packet and insurance request, respectively. Well, almost a month later I still hadn't heard back from the guy. Over the past few weeks I have been leaving messages but getting no calls back. So, today, feeling bad that I am holding up some poor sales rep's $84k order, I call the vendor up in an attempt to strong-arm him into getting me the documentation that I need. I told him that without the proper documentation that we weren't going to place the order. He told me (quite rudely) that there was no way he was going to meet my requests and even if he was going to it didn't matter because my company already dropped the purchase order 2-3 weeks ago. With my ultimatum rendered completely impotent, I had no choice but to put my tail between my legs and hang up. Now, besides that completely embarrassing phone call, here is what really has my blood boiling. I never approved this non-stock request. I never approved the vendor terms. We never received the proper insurance coverage. Since the order is over $25k, the requisite large order form was never approved. I never released the sales order itself from financial hold in our system. How did this order get dropped??? Well, it appears that the customer service rep who dropped the PO decided that he would completely circumvent me, violate a whole basket full of procedures including (but not limited to) making a non-stock purchase without financial approval, without a large order form approval, without insurance coverage, and with COD vendor terms on an $84k(!) order. He did this by taking advantage of a day last month when I left early. He got another financial rep to release the hold by saying that I had already approved everything but didn't release the hold before I left. I am seriously ticked. The Big Boss Lady has been in meetings all day, but I did get a few minutes to give her the brief rundown. She is equally as upset because the large order forms go through her workflow and that particular one is still sitting in her inbox unapproved. So, this guy didn't just cross me, he crossed the higher ups. If this guy doesn't get a serious reprimand for this, I don't know what I am going to do. Personally I would fire him on the spot, but knowing how shady these sales deals get sometimes I am sure he got high-fives instead.
Since I mentioned it yesterday, I have to tell you all that I didn't get a call at 7:05am this morning. She waited until 7:20. Not to let it slip, she called literally the very second I got back from lunch. I hadn't even sat down yet before the phone started ringing. The guy who sits at the next desk looked over at me still holding my book, sunglasses and car keys and laughed saying, "They just don't cut you a break, do they?" No, apparently not.
So here it is 15 minutes left until the end of the day on a Friday and I am on the phone trying to resolve another vendor issue because the supplier has put us on hold for not paying two invoices in which they billed us incorrectly and we are awaiting debit memos back on. Ok, let me get this straight... you are punishing us for not paying the invoices that you admit to being incorrect and owe us debits on?! I swear... just when you think you've heard it all...
Well, I was going to do a review on Porno for Pyro's self-titled first album, but this post has already gone on far too long due to my ranting and frankly my head hurts so I am going to sign off for now. Sorry everyone. I'll try to have some fresh music-related stuff on Monday.
How often do you hope that the following Monday goes better than your Friday? Ugh.
About a month ago I got a non-approved supplier purchase request in the tune of around $84k. Since the vendor is unapproved (meaning that we have no pre-existing sales deals set up with them), there is a bunch of bureaucratic hoops we in the financial department have to jump through before we can approve these orders. So, I called the vendor at the time and told their Director of Sales that in order for us to place this order we would need to negotiate better payment terms and that we would need to get a copy of their product liability insurance naming us as additionally insured to cover our risk as a reseller. The guy said no problem and I faxed over our credit packet and insurance request, respectively. Well, almost a month later I still hadn't heard back from the guy. Over the past few weeks I have been leaving messages but getting no calls back. So, today, feeling bad that I am holding up some poor sales rep's $84k order, I call the vendor up in an attempt to strong-arm him into getting me the documentation that I need. I told him that without the proper documentation that we weren't going to place the order. He told me (quite rudely) that there was no way he was going to meet my requests and even if he was going to it didn't matter because my company already dropped the purchase order 2-3 weeks ago. With my ultimatum rendered completely impotent, I had no choice but to put my tail between my legs and hang up. Now, besides that completely embarrassing phone call, here is what really has my blood boiling. I never approved this non-stock request. I never approved the vendor terms. We never received the proper insurance coverage. Since the order is over $25k, the requisite large order form was never approved. I never released the sales order itself from financial hold in our system. How did this order get dropped??? Well, it appears that the customer service rep who dropped the PO decided that he would completely circumvent me, violate a whole basket full of procedures including (but not limited to) making a non-stock purchase without financial approval, without a large order form approval, without insurance coverage, and with COD vendor terms on an $84k(!) order. He did this by taking advantage of a day last month when I left early. He got another financial rep to release the hold by saying that I had already approved everything but didn't release the hold before I left. I am seriously ticked. The Big Boss Lady has been in meetings all day, but I did get a few minutes to give her the brief rundown. She is equally as upset because the large order forms go through her workflow and that particular one is still sitting in her inbox unapproved. So, this guy didn't just cross me, he crossed the higher ups. If this guy doesn't get a serious reprimand for this, I don't know what I am going to do. Personally I would fire him on the spot, but knowing how shady these sales deals get sometimes I am sure he got high-fives instead.
Since I mentioned it yesterday, I have to tell you all that I didn't get a call at 7:05am this morning. She waited until 7:20. Not to let it slip, she called literally the very second I got back from lunch. I hadn't even sat down yet before the phone started ringing. The guy who sits at the next desk looked over at me still holding my book, sunglasses and car keys and laughed saying, "They just don't cut you a break, do they?" No, apparently not.
So here it is 15 minutes left until the end of the day on a Friday and I am on the phone trying to resolve another vendor issue because the supplier has put us on hold for not paying two invoices in which they billed us incorrectly and we are awaiting debit memos back on. Ok, let me get this straight... you are punishing us for not paying the invoices that you admit to being incorrect and owe us debits on?! I swear... just when you think you've heard it all...
Well, I was going to do a review on Porno for Pyro's self-titled first album, but this post has already gone on far too long due to my ranting and frankly my head hurts so I am going to sign off for now. Sorry everyone. I'll try to have some fresh music-related stuff on Monday.
How often do you hope that the following Monday goes better than your Friday? Ugh.
posted by john at 4:05 PM
3 Comments:
damm dude that's bogus
it is cool that at least your boss is on your side and appalled rather than blaming you for it...
hope your weekend is going better than your week!
Thanks, Sass. My weekend was much better than my week, I made sure of it. ;-)
I'm supposed to discuss the issue fully with the Big Boss Lady today, so we'll see what comes out of it. Hopefully something, but probably nothing since that is how things typically go around here...
heh
sounds like most places tragically
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