Monday, June 23, 2014

Passive Aggressive Project Management III

Last week I got a meeting request from one of the younger engineers on the project. She wanted to meet for an "introduction" and to understand my "roles and responsibilities". (But, we both report to the same guy. He didn't tell you what I was here for?) I called her back and told her that unless they had started flying the Concorde again that I couldn't make it. So she decided to do a telephone conference. Now, you need to know that Big Oil Company has put technical professionals in 4 man offices and have done away with speaker phones because of the disruption to others. If you want a speaker phone you have to go to a conference room. Also, all phone calls are now VOIP.

To make the story short, I could not connect to the conference room phone on either the desk phone or my personal mobile (at international roaming rates!) and they could not call me so the whole plan went Tango Uniform. In order to try to salvage something I called her on her office phone (that worked). She blew a lot of smoke up my butt and asked for some help with a problem she had.

She sent me an email chain with the background. It was quickly obvious that there were two equally functional solutions being proposed by two different guys who got into a p***ing contest with each other and  each refused to give in. In no way was I getting in the middle of that Charlie Foxtrot so I called her and left her message telling her that her problem was not a technical one but of personalities.

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