Humble me, Lord.

Yes, you're getting two for the price of one today. To quote Sadie, what just happened to me is "one for the books." Recently I coordinated an event, complete with door prizes. I must say that we had some pretty cool stuff to give away, so you can imagine...there we were, dialing the digits of all the prize winners and announcing with gusto, "You're a winner!" After instructing all of the lucky ones to claim their prizes, I place said prizes in a box. I thought we'd make this as orderly as possible and just write on the card what the participant won so there would be no hemming and hawing over the stash.

I was called out of my cubbyhole/sardine can/playpen this afternoon to present a prize. When I made it to the front room where the box and eager prize-winner were I was told that two winners were now in queue. I give winner #1 his prize and ask winner #2 for her name. All I could think as she was saying her name was, "Please don't let it be the shoes, please don't let it be the shoes!"

It was the shoes.

She won shoes. And she had no legs. She was in a wheelchair and had no legs. And I gave her shoes because that's what the card said. I couldn't deftly switch the prize because we had already called these winners and told them what they would be claiming.

I got back to my desk and one of the workers from the front room had sent me text message before I had ever emerged from my cubby: "I hope she didn't win the shoes." Wow. Would have been nice had I gotten that message before I hoisted myself from my chair.

It was a very awkward moment for me, and I can only hope that I've learned something from this experience. And that the girl laughed her ass off as she rolled out of the building with her new shoes and thought, "Now that was freakin hilarious! Poor girl!"

What a croc.

That's the way the roll...well, rolls.

It would seem that Emailita has not been through Managing People 101...not that this would be breaking news to anyone. I will not claim to know everything there is to know about directing your peeps, but let me just throw this out there:

If you assign someone a task, let them do it. It's like when you were growing up and your mom said, "Hey...can you butter these rolls while I finish up the green beans?" Then she snatched the knife from your hand and buttered them herself because her way of buttering rolls was the only way to butter rolls properly so how could you be expected to do it right?!

So I will sit at my desk now, twiddling my thumbs, because Emailita has snatched the knife away. Hey...maybe I could fill the glasses with ice!

Yes, We Have No Permissions For You

Today we credit Chip O. Shoulder from the Intellectually Challenged department with frustrating the heck out of me. He called requesting that my department give three users in his department "access to a network folder". It sounded as though these users simply needed to be added to their department's group in Active Directory. Simple enough, right? When I called Chip and asked him if he had talked to Jerry Blueberry, who works in his department and normally handles such requests, Chip replied, "Well, I'm the person who normally requests access, so I don't understand why I need to talk to him."

Sensing some intra-office conflict, I decided to do Chip a favor and find out who might be able to help him with this request. When I called him back to explain that I was still trying to get to the bottom of it, he flew off the handle. "I'll just wait until Jerry gets back on Monday because clearly you don't want to grant the permissions for me since I'm not on your special list of people who can put in requests."

"No, Chip, it's not that you can't submit the request. I'm just trying to find out who else can help you with this request besides Jerry because normally he is the one who contacts us with requests. I don't think that our department maintains the folder or server to which you are trying to gain access," I reassuringly replied.

"Well that's not what you said at all. You said you couldn't help me with this because you have to talk to Jerry--he's the only person you will work with."

Sigh.

I went into "I want to tell you where to put your request but I'd like to keep my job in these uncertain economic times" mode. I politely said, "Chip, it sounds as though I have not communicated with you effectively enough and that you are very frustrated. Let me start over." I once again tried to explain to him that without understanding exactly what these people needed to access and where it was stored, I was going to have to dig a little deeper.

Those of you who have had to deal with these people who think you are utterly brain-dead and useless will be glad to know that upon further investigation it appears that he wanted to grant permissions for people to access a shared folder...on a machine that belongs to one of HIS coworkers, specifically Jerry Blueberry. This fills me with glee. I know...I am evil.

Yep, all's well that ends well.

Poo Poem

If your flush
gets in a rush,
and the poo
stays in the loo,
please be kind
and flush the damned thing again.