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Admin
Frist... but only at the end of the month.
Admin
I hate how this ended. Now I am depressed (though I should have expected it).
BTW: If I had someone literally poking me in the chest like that I would be formally charging him with assault.
Admin
Naaah.
Employees are the personal property of their boss.
Admin
I'm sorry, but that is utterly obscene. There are no words.
Admin
Is this how things works in US? It is just stupid and even CEO's should understand this.
Admin
This is why SLAs are generally bullshit.
Admin
This is why SLA are bullshit if not done right.
But closing a C level requesters ticket without working out an agreed solution is just stupid and cries for overreactions.
Admin
So a salesman has the power to unilaterally alter an SLA with no oversight? Or was the oversight so lax that this is a normal occurrence? Either way, I think the company did Dominick a favor by letting him go to move on to saner pastures.
Admin
So Benjamin is an abusive bully who technically physically assaulted Dom, and this is ok?!?!?! I've been in that situation before a couple of times and it is not nice. Benjamin should have had his ass hauled up before HR that instant.
Admin
That SLA was an even bigger failure.
Admin
Familiar old story of a salesman selling stuff that cannot be delivered and the stupidity of management not to see that and blame the wrong persons. Guys like Benjamin generally do more damage than good. As a more or less sane person you always keep hoping that some day management gets smart enough to see the real issues and start listening to the persons that do know what they are talking about. Being a bully should have made them fire him anyway...
Admin
Before or after defending yourself with 'minimal' force
Admin
Absolutely the truth. Overall, they get to have a big sale and now a write off. Tax protection for the sales guy, nothing for the people that actually do the work.
Admin
So Benjamin amended the SLA while there was already an opened ticket, retroactively changing its deadline, deliberately putting his own company at an immediate financial risk, and could get away with it ? That's TRWTF.
Another WTF is the company actually paying penalties for an impossible request. Isn't that something the SLA should have prevented ? What if the customer had asked for a philosopher's stone or a free energy generator ?
Admin
When someone pokes you, you get a free poke back.
"I'm sorry, Catbert, he startled and frightened me and I lashed out like any normal person has the legal right to do when violently assaulted by surprise. I only hit him once, and only to make him stop violently assaulting me. I'm sorry I cracked his breastbone and sent him to the hospital, but that's going to keep happening to him if he keeps violently assaulting people by surprise. Do I need to retain a lawyer or can we just strongly reprimand him and pretend this never happened?"
You only get one shot, so make it count.
Admin
No, this isn't how things normally work in the US. It's how it works at very poorly run companies, regardless of nationality. Since this company kept Benjamin around, I imagine their financial statements have suffered considerably, since Benjamin quite enthusiastically adopts an approach that costs his own company a great deal of money rather than upselling the customer to a faster response time. Benjamin isn't just shortsighted; he's a terrible salesman as well.
FedEx is a good example of an American company that isn't dumb like this. If you pay for five-day shipping, the carrier will not be delivering it tomorrow, even if they can. This because they know that if they routinely do that, people will stop buying the more expensive next-day service. They're not dumb enough to give up money by competing with their own services.
Benjamin, however, is dumb enough to do that, and even dumb enough to change a contract in order to put his own company at even more of a disadvantage. That the business failed to recognize that he is the problem means that business probably won't be in business for that much longer.
Admin
A SLA normally applies to equipment they have, not equipment they ordered.
If it is priority #1, then provide them with a printer now. Not the one they ordered, but one you have. And swap it with the new one when it becomes available.
If they can't do that, then they don't know how to run a company.
(Well, unfortunately, that condition was clearly satisfied already, given what they did. :-/ )
Admin
Where Domonick made his big mistake is to think that any ticket from a CFO could be a Level 4. Doesn't matter how minor or insignificant, high level executive tickets are always Priority 1AAA! Yes, Benjamin was a massive obnoxious jerk who should have been fired. But that does not change reality - Priority 1AAA!
Admin
I like this salesman. He's a real go-getter with a can-do attitude who isn't afraid to think outside the box when it comes to getting things done. CFO
Admin
It seems to me that the correct solution is to preorder the printer and close the ticket with "Printer ordered. Expected date of manufacture of printer YYYYMMDD."
Admin
Let's see. What should that ticket look like?
Support Ticket #: 316267 Client: 271 - ABC Fabrications Inc. Entered by: Cindy - Customer Support Entered: Friday April 13 08:31 Assigned to: Dominick Priority: 4 - New Feature Request Description: CFO wants a new printer (Cogix model CT51236) installed and connected to his Mac desktop in his office. Status: New
Entered by: Dominick - Support Technician Entered: Friday April 13 14:22 Status: Open Assigned to: Joanne Description: The requested printer is not in stock. Transferring to Purchasing to acquire.
Entered by: Benjamin - Sales Entered: Monday April 16 10:12 Status: Overdue Priority: 1 - Emergency Assigned to: Dominick Description: This is coming from the CFO. This is automatically level 1. This must be installed today.
Entered by: Tom - Support Supervisor Entered: Monday April 16 10:38 Status: Open Priority: 4 - New Feature Request Assigned to: Joanne Description: Priority 1 is reserved for when the client is non-operational until we fix our stuff. It is not for new nice-to-have hardware requests. We do not have that printer in stock, nor do we normally stock it. Purchasing will have to source it first. This could take a few days.
Entered by: Benjamin - Sales Entered: Monday April 16 10:45 Status: Overdue Priority: 1 - Emergency Description: Their contract states that a request from a C-level executive is automatically priority 1, so this needed to be done by Saturday 8 AM at the latest! We are facing huge non-performance penalties.
Admin
Entered by: Joanne - Purchasing Entered: Monday April 16 13:08 Status: Won't Fix Description: The requested product is not available. The manufacturer is not shipping that printer until the end of the month. We can pre-order with our wholesaler, but it will not arrive until well into May.
Entered by: Tom - Support Supervisor Entered: Monday April 16, 16:01 Priority: 9 - Closed Description: The printer is not available yet. Benjamin is to advice the client that his request can not be fulfilled at this time. Besides, the manufacture says that printer will only support Windows 10.
Well, that is what it should have been anyway. What the?! Why were the first paragraphs huge?
Admin
"The best I can do is pre-order it and have it shipped to him in a couple weeks. " and yet he didn't do his best, but closed the ticket and basically told the CFO to come back in a few weeks.
What the CFO pays for is good service and this was a not it. Deserved to be fired. Case closed.
Admin
And that notion alone is part of the problem. A ticket from a CxO should NOT automatically be #1 priority because it comes from a CxO. It should be treated like any other request and properly triaged. Instead, companies perpetuate this notion that executives are "better" than the common rabble and therefore automatically take priority just to show that they're more important.
Admin
Dominic's survival instincts weren't strong in this case. Open ticket: Order unavailable printer for CFO Action: Place order for printer (pre-orders count as orders, right?), record order number, close ticket. Delivery and install not mentioned as part of the ticket or SLA. Breaking Benjamin's finger in quick reaction and claiming self-defense for physical assault: optional
Admin
Yes, I have experience with this. I tracked a package sent to me from Dallas to San Antonio with the standard delivery. I saw it arrived in San Antonio two days early. What did Fedex do? They sent it back to Austin so it could spend longer in transit.
Admin
Remember that kid in Austin who sent bombs by FedEx? He was completely clueless about this, so one of his "toys" went boom up in Schertz.
Admin
I lost a job once where the sales staff promised the impossible then I went onsite to install the new system only to explain to the customer that it did not work the way it was sold. I was let go and felt much better when I went to unemployment and half the company showed up. I wasn't the only one and this was an excuse based on financial mismanagement by the owner. We were also pulled off customer sites to go wire the owners new home more than once. They also instructed us to replace other company service stickers with our own whenever we passed by the competitions equipment. It was a very shady business. Best thing to happen to me was to get forced out. New better opportunities presented themselves.
Admin
With that said, the correct way to handle this is not to avoid being yelled at. The correct way to handle this is to walk into their office, inform them that they cannot have the printer because it has not yet been released, and see what their request then is.
Now if that is likely to evoke a 3-year old tantrum, then you politely close the door, ask them to sit down, and cordially request the resources necissary to get said equipment. Point out you need money for the airplane tickets, strongmen, hookers and blow. You need time to find out who the engineers and warehouse managers are, if a onshore warehouse has stock. I've got to find restaraunt owners and hoteliers willing to forge reciepts to cover up the money on the expense book. Whole 9 yards. Lay it on thick, but convincingly.
The response is likely to be "You can do that?".
Personally, I'd respond "Sure, but you'd have to trust me. For all you know I could just go to vegas with the cash and have the time of my life on the company dime and feed you a yarn for 2-3 weeks. I'm also really sure, given the rapport you have with staff and the way you run your office, that any watchers you'd send would also come along for the ride if I offered, they'd have no skin in the game. Of course, you couldn't point it out if I did, I'd have your signature on things ahead of time, and on things you never signed. There'd need to be some kind of reward at the end of it, something I knew I could trust collecting."
..."Name your price."
"Well you aren't going to like it. Buuut. My price is, well. It has to be paid in advance you see."
.."What is it"
"Ahem. Well, I'd require simply that you to wait 4 weeks for them to release the printer. I think that's reasonable, yes?"
With you can't dazzle them with wizardy, baffle them with BS.