Plan ahead you...

There's a relatively new guy at work who is bugging the crap-o-la out of me.

He's in charge of a particular part of our business and has to interact with me on a current project.

The first irksome thing he did was IM me at 1:10pm by saying "hi". No additional information followed. He waited until I said "hi" before responding back. Now people. Why don't you say "hi" and then immediately type up what you need? This way if I'm the middle of something then I can THINK about your request/question and get back to you? Don't just say "hi" and wait for me to answer.

The second irksome thing is that he asked me to set up a client environment and then asked how long it would take. Huh? How long have we had this client? I never heard of them. So that's why the client environment hadn't ALREADY been set up. If you are working with a new client? You need to let everyone know about it so we can prepare. I set up the client environment and then emailed a login request to our external technical team.

The third irksome thing is that he called me 1:30pm to actually ASK me when the client environment would be available. Huh? Didn't we just go through that conversation in IM? I told him that I had set up the client environment and let him know that a request had been sent to our external tech team. It would depend on them.

So.... the moral of this story is that he should THINK AHEAD. Think about the client's possible needs. How will you communicate with them? How will they communicate with you? Understand that your team members are working on their own deliverables. Don't expect other people to DROP what they're doing because you realize you need something. PLAN AHEAD. Like my Dad used to always tell me. Think 4 to 5 steps ahead of you. Don't just look at what's right in front of you.

And this guy? He better step up. I already ironed out a mess he created earlier this week. I addressed an email to this bonehead and another guy. The other guy and I worked through the issue with about 8 total emails. The bonehead? Didn't even bother chiming in. And this was an issue that HE should have caught. ARGH!