Flibbertigibbet

The Importance of Drafts

If you work in a cubical-based environment, it is pretty much guaranteed that you're going to get an email that makes you want to take a swing arm stapler to a certain someone's eyelids.

Trust me: violence is not the answer -- in this case.

Instead, I like to write what I'm really thinking, erase it, and then write a professional response that is composed with my professional (not rage-reducing) goals in mind.

I work with a someone who believes that his time is more important than everyone else's time. He frequently asks other people to do things to help him accomplish the things that he deems too unimportant for his schedule.

I've had projects delayed for several weeks before all because he felt it was not worth his time to direct his team to make the project a priority.

Recently, he submitted a request to me, but he used the wrong system. I asked him to use the correct system and offered to train him on how to use it. He said that would be cool and that he would make some time to sit down and go over it with me.

Mind you: my job is not to train people on how to read and click appropriately. But in the interest of efficiency and effective project flow, I have offered some of my time to do this. It is the right thing to do.

Well, he didn't get back to me. I reminded him and he said he'd be with me in a minute and he didn't get back to me.

This morning, I got in and he had sent his request to me via email asking if I could begin working on it without a properly submitted request.

Of course I can. It would be absurd not to, but the reason I have to do that is a problem that needs to be resolved.

So, after his email this morning, I wrote a draft of an email saying what I really wanted to say. It contained this line:

Sure, I'll do your job for you -- again, but please set aside some time tomorrow so that I can talk down to you like the punk you are. I promise to get away from you as fast as I can because I hate you and I feel reasonably confident that you're not going to tell me to my face that you're too important for this. Jackass.

See? That would be rude. That would be unprofessional. That would be wrong.

Instead, I edited it down. I EVEN avoided using an emoticon because in a note like this, we all know what those damn smiley faces mean. I have the restraint of a saint with a fire and brimstone thrower.

I will create a ticket for you so that it is in the system, but please set aside some time tomorrow so that I can go over this with you. I promise it’s very quick and painless.

My calendar is up to date if you’d like to send an appointment.

Much better and I don't have a lot of pent-up rage about it, either.

The next time I bitch about people at my work, I might talk about people who refuse to check my calendar and instead send me emails saying, "Are you available at X time?"