You Can Make A Guy the Boss, But You Can't Make Him Effective

I did something decidedly un-Merle-like. I bought a pair of $325 shoes at Nordstrom's in San Diego. For some time now I have plotted the purchase of these shoes because I bought into the story that they are the finest walking shoes on the planet. Turns out not to be true, at least in my case. They seem like just another pair of shoes to me. The fine folks at Nordstroms will gladly take them back because of their generous return policy, but I am the idiot that had to have them, so I guess I will just live with my decision. In other news, I received a call this past Wednesday from one of my company's very fine salesmen, asking me if a project that I am working on would be completed in time to meet a customer's opening date. This particular project has two major components. Let's call my portion, part A and the second portion we will call part 2. Just kidding, its part B. I have my portion completed and I have been waiting on someone else, we will call her Jane, to finish her work. Finish isn't really correct because she hasn't exactly started, even though she tells me every week that she will get it done. I explained the problem to this salesman and told him that he really needed to talk my boss, and who is also Jane's boss, because I hold no sway over her. He said he would do that. Thursday, I asked the boss if the sales guy called him. He says yes and asks me to explain the problem to him, so that he can call the guy back with an answer. I wanted to tell him that Jane is a lazy slug, but I laid out the problem more diplomatically. He said, "Go ask her when she will be done, and then come back and tell me, so that I can call the guy." Is he kidding me? If I could get her to do it, I wouldn't need him. But off I went and as expected, I got another nonspecific promise to get it done soon. I marched back into his office and gave him her reply. He seemed to accept, "I'll get to it" as a satisfactory response. Later he copied an email to me that he sent to the sales guy assuring him that Jane and Merle were working on it and there would be no problems meeting the customer's date. I'm not sure what the boss thinks has changed. A real solution would have been for him to give Jane a deadline, but he didn't. I don't get it. The lovely Mrs. Sneed and I have this discussion all the time. Why do some people think that because the say or believe something that it is automatically true? Saying it will be done is not a solution, it is a delusion. As the man said, "Faith without works is dead." Today the customer's representative called me and left a message to call him, because they are concerned. Well, join the club. I called back, but the guy was out. I can't tell a customer that my coworker is a sluggo and the boss is ineffective. This is the kind of crap I hate. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong and sometimes just full of it. Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor