Tuesday

The Best of February - Horror Stories From Advertising

Another happy edition of Horror Stories!

Panic Attack - A woman who on most days I love dearly. She is dedicated, hard-working, and usually friendly. On her shipping days, however, it becomes a different story. She flies around the building like her hair is on fire, barking orders at various people, and if the stress gets to be too much she vanishes, not to be seen until the end of the day as she prepares to go home. Most recently, RJ & I were preparing a shipment ahead of schedule because I was to be out of the office on the day of the shipment. Panic Attack knew the plan for me to be out and said almost everything was finished anyways, so I shouldn't worry. I was enjoying a day of leisure when RJ calls me around 5:50 sounding very stressed out,
"I have no cover pages! I can't finish the shipment without cover pages!" "Calm down, where's Panic Attack?" "I don't know, but it's almost 6:00 and if I don't have them in the next 5 minutes the shipment can't go! What should I do?" "Well, just wait until 6:30 when our shipment gets picked up and if you still don't have cover pages just go home and I'll deal with the shipment next week." "OK. Got it. I'll just wait until 6:30." About 15 minutes later I get another phone call from RJ... "She says she'll have the cover pages tonight, but late. She wants me to take the shipment and turn it in on Saturday!" "No, that's not fair to you. If she wants them to go she can take them." "I can't tell her that! She told me not to tell anyone! She'll get so mad at me if I say anything. Oh, God, you can't tell her I called you. She's so mad right now!" "It's not fair to you, just transfer me and I'll talk to her." "No, no. I'm short on my hours this week, I'll do it, I just wish she had told me sooner." Come to find out Panic Attack had been in meetings all day with her manager who was lecturing her on how she needs to be more prepared for her shipments... but she felt she couldn't interrupt him to tell him she wasn't finished with her current shipment. So she delayed everything and simply expected RJ to finish things up for her on her day off. She finished her cover pages at 8:00 and gave them to RJ, but didn't help with preparing the paperwork at all... she ran about the building on her phone until 8:30 and then went home. At least RJ got her hours up to 40 for the week.

The Fish - Don't know what else to call her really... she drinks like one for certain. She gets to go on a lot of travel for the company, and always comes back saying things like, "I was so fucking hammered." or "I drank more than all the clients combined!" like she is displaying a badge of honor. Now I really have no problems with people drinking under any circumstances as long as they don't embarass themselves professionally. At the Christmas party, The Fish went up to her manager and said, "If you ever put me on (omitted) account I will quit so fast. I will never work on that. I will leave that day if you ever even try to put me on." Her manager responded with something incoherent, and I don't think the conversation was even remembered by either party involved, only those nearby who weren't drunk. Well, come to find out that on her last trip she billed the company for all of her drinks, whether or not she was with clients... and it was well over 8 drinks in just one night (our company limit is one reimbursed per day when on travel). Her opinion on the matter is that if you're away from home on a company trip, everything should be billed to the company if you are behaving as you would at home.

Hmmm... I will keep that in my for my next company trip. I tend to shop a lot whether I'm at home or on travel, the company should probably be paying for my spending habits.

2 Comments:

Blogger Collin said...

I have no idea if you read boing boing's site at all, but I thought you might find this entertaining: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/02/24/what-are-the-lessons-of-mmorpgs-today/

2:53 PM  
Blogger Collin said...

This too: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/02/27/what-is-your-ideal-mmo/

3:01 PM  

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