Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Way to Fall on that Grenade!
This afternoon, I had a meeting to discuss a project I’m working on. We’re in the final phase of the project where all we have to do is write a report and send it out. All the “hard” work has already been done. All that was left was the “annoying” part. I’m not a big fan of writing reports, so I was thrilled when Wang said that he’d write it.
So I met with Wang and the manager on the project who I’ll call, um, John. John is a bit of a jerk to work with. (Yes, that seems to be a running theme here.) We sit down in the office and John says something along the lines of, “Before we even begin, I just want to say that this report wasn’t good enough to have hit my desk. You guys really dropped the ball writing this and it’s not acceptable.”
Knowing that I was completely innocent, I didn’t really get too upset. Wang, on the other hand, visually stiffened as if he’d been slapped across the face with a week-old salmon. The only thought running through my brain at this point was, “How do I manage to tell John that Wang was the one who worked on this?” I thought about kicking John under the table and nodding my head to Wang. Maybe sign language. Too bad all I know is “more,” “milk,” and “please.” (All courtesy of Luke, of course.)
Lo and behold, I didn’t have to worry about telling John anything. Wang volunteered all that information for me. Wang basically tried to defend his approach. In so doing, he made it abundantly clear that he did the whole thing and that I had no involvement. Even John noticed because at the end of the meeting, he told Wang to make sure that he told me where all the files are.
So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Wang for being so stubborn and defensive. He single-handedly cleared me of any implication of incompetence thanks to his own incompetence. Both in how he wrote the report in the first place and then in how he subsequently responded to it. I think I’m going to send him some flowers for his troubles. And the card will say, “Keep up the shoddy work!”
So I met with Wang and the manager on the project who I’ll call, um, John. John is a bit of a jerk to work with. (Yes, that seems to be a running theme here.) We sit down in the office and John says something along the lines of, “Before we even begin, I just want to say that this report wasn’t good enough to have hit my desk. You guys really dropped the ball writing this and it’s not acceptable.”
Knowing that I was completely innocent, I didn’t really get too upset. Wang, on the other hand, visually stiffened as if he’d been slapped across the face with a week-old salmon. The only thought running through my brain at this point was, “How do I manage to tell John that Wang was the one who worked on this?” I thought about kicking John under the table and nodding my head to Wang. Maybe sign language. Too bad all I know is “more,” “milk,” and “please.” (All courtesy of Luke, of course.)
Lo and behold, I didn’t have to worry about telling John anything. Wang volunteered all that information for me. Wang basically tried to defend his approach. In so doing, he made it abundantly clear that he did the whole thing and that I had no involvement. Even John noticed because at the end of the meeting, he told Wang to make sure that he told me where all the files are.
So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Wang for being so stubborn and defensive. He single-handedly cleared me of any implication of incompetence thanks to his own incompetence. Both in how he wrote the report in the first place and then in how he subsequently responded to it. I think I’m going to send him some flowers for his troubles. And the card will say, “Keep up the shoddy work!”
