Thursday, June 01, 2006

I'm mad and you better apologize

My colleague at work, we'll call him Jim, made me so mad yesterday.  He had asked for a PDF document a couple of days ago, and I didn't get it to him.  So he called yesterday morning around ten to make sure I hadn't forgotten his request.
"I haven't forgotten, I just haven't gotten to that item yet."
"But now I need it urgently."
"How urgently?"
"I need it today."
"Okay."
So I started on the PDF around 4:45.  I ran into a few problems and needed to do some research to answer another question he asked in another email.  It took me an hour.  So I sent him the PDF and the rest of the email at 5:45.  When I hit send, my message was off my screen and my inbox returned.  In that inbox, I found a new message that had arrived around 5:30.  It was from this colleague, and it was mean - full of capital letters and such.  He had CC'ed my boss, and proceeded to tell me how important his request had been, and he requested it twice including a call this morning where he made it very clear that he needed it today, and he wanted an explanation as to why I hadn't sent his document, and he would need me to send it FIRST THING in the morning.  I replied immediately, also copying my boss, telling him "Relax.  You said you needed it today and you got it today.  I don't let you down."  Then I sent him another message without copying my boss, telling him "Don't be evil."  And maybe one other sentence that I can't remember.  I can't remember it because my whole drive home all I could think of was that I left out a thought from that message -- since when has anybody needed to go to my boss to get me to do anything?  I don't drag my feet!  If I'm not going to do something, I tell you straight out that I'm not going to do it.  Or that I'm not going to meet your deadline or whatever.  Aargh! It's all I could think of, the whole 25-minute drive.  And I was mad at myself for dwelling on such negative thoughts.  I wanted to think about other things, get positive.  Finally when I got home I had my regular routine waiting for me, and the usual hurry-up distracted me.  Thank goodness for the distraction, otherwise I might have sent him another email and I would have regretted it.
This morning, I found his reply in my mailbox.  He blamed it on "one of those days," and called himself "Mr. Grumpy Pants."  And he copied my boss.  It made me laugh, and all was fine.  I don't think it was a sincere apology, but I don't care very much now.  He's done this kind of thing before, and he always has to swallow his words later.  So it was just another one of those times.

1 comment:

  1. Uh, if someone calls you at 10am - says they need it today - why would you wait to start it until 4:45pm? that does seem a little ridiculous.

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