Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Is the tenor of my voice unhearable to you?

Today's office interaction is brought to you by the folks at
Some Random Hearing Aid corporation
&
Maybe if I Use a Dog Whistle You'll Notice, Inc.

Timeline:
Month of November
Characters:
Lower Level: Frustrated lower level employee who fears her voice has been snatched away by The Gentlemen or some other lower level demon.

Upper Crust: Management level employee who has an insane ability to remember all your fuck ups but none of her own.

Totally Random: Management level employee of another department.

Just Trying To Help: Mid level employee, often caught in cross fire of Upper Crust and Lower Level.

Our story starts at the beginning of November where Lower Level, trying to juggle multiple projects, remembers with a start that another project (that they were late on last year) will be coming around the corner full speed any day now.

Lower Level: (gasps) Argh, we have to get this project review started or we will be late again! I know I'll go and check with Totally Random to find out the timeline and get this started!

Lower Level and Totally Random have a conversation and get a timeline worked out. Lower Level then takes said timeline back to Upper Crust and makes sure rest of team is aware.

A week passes.

Lower Level: Just wanted to remind you Upper Crust that the project review needs to be done by the end of this month. I know we are all super busy so let's work out a plan to make sure it gets done.

Upper Crust: I'll look at it next week when I get back.

Another week passes.

Lower Level: Umm, Upper Crust, have you had a chance to look at that project review? I just ask because with the holiday coming up we don't want to lose any time. Totally Random would like this as close to done as possible by week one of December!

Upper Crust: I'll look at it next week when I get back.

Lower Level: Well, I think I'll just get this started and send the project out to the team. Doesn't hurt to have it in everyone's hands since it's due the first week of December.

Lower Level sends project to team with instructions and explanations of time lines.

Another week passes making this the final week of November.

Lower Level sends out same email that she sent last week to team with a reminder that the project is due (gasp) the first week of December and can we please set up a plan for how we are going to accomplish this?

Holidays commence. Theoretically joy is had by all.

Lower Level returns to work and is in the middle of a meeting (that is not about previous mentioned project) with Just Trying To Help when Upper Crust walks up and interrupts.

Upper Crust: We don't need to have this project fully done this week right? (Visually scoffs) Totally Random just wants a base estimate, not a fully reviewed product correct? (Doubt of ability to get this done permeates speech patterns)

At this point Lower Level starts to wonder if maybe her voice is actually only audible to herself.

Just Trying To Help: It was my understanding that Totally Random did want this as close to done as possible by this week.

Upper Crust stutters, splutters, and stares at Lower Level in confusion. Lower Level just stares blankly back since all month she has already said This Project is Due as Close to Complete as Possible by the First Week of December for a month now so she's not quite sure repeating it now will help.

Upper Crust mutters something about not understanding Just Trying To Help's notes and wanders off. Leaving project no closer to completion. Lower Level and Just Trying To Help go back to original meeting they were having.

End Scene.

1 comment:

Amy said...

I'm picturing it all.....sigh.