Happee Toothpaste

#128: Foaming At The Mouth

And so I sent the email.
I couldn't help it. People need to know that they're doing a lousy job so they don't go home at the end of the day giving themselves undeserved pats on their backs. Of course I shaved off the emotions. If I had sent that mail last Friday, that would've dripped with all the bloody things I've been wrestling with since I had to deal with this team for a particular requirement. What I sent just had facts. Facts with subtle edge.

And it's a basic thing, what I'm asking for. Our comptroller group in Globe could deliver in a day or 2. The old team in Coke could deliver in half a day. Sometimes, the guy in charge would turn around in an hour and totally surprise me with his efficiency. This new team takes three weeks (and counting) all while being non-committal about when they could give the requirement. Unbelievable! I get twitches just thinking about such brazen incompetence. I know they're trying. I understand. But "trying" is not good enough in the corporate setting, right? Since these people are trying and failing, why not hand over their jobs and salaries to the people who can try THEN actually deliver?

So what do you do when all your "asking nicely" and "begging" and "courting" and "asking firmly" then "begging some more" then "asking with force" are not working? You raise the matter to your superiors in hope that they will actually go beyond saying, "Hey, Gladys. Smile." Come on. If that's all I needed, I wouldn't need bosses. I know how to smile. In fact, I want to smile. All the time. But not while some project is on the brink of falling apart and I'm the one that's stretching to keep things together while everything else is pulling at me from all sides. Please don't ask me to smile. Please walk over to your counterpart from that team and work some miracle. Then I'll smile.

All this is making me feel very toothpaste-ish. Like being wringed and flattened and rolled up to give the last ounce of product; while on another hand, having that strong desire to scrape out the plaque build-up in the chain. Oooh. I'm just bubbling over and turning all frothy now.


P.S.
B-E-A-M means "Smile," right (as that cheesy commercial jingle goes)?
Well then beam me up, Scottie.