You F'D up

[evilhomer]

People make mistakes, it happens. It's the response to those mistakes that makes the difference. I suppose I can't really hold these morons responsible; they are morons, they know nothing. They know how to pick up their phone when a customer calls. They know how to pick up their phone again after the customer asks for something, and they know who to call. And that is literally everything they know. This chaps my ass to no end because I was passed over for one of their jobs (Link) but I won't get into that again.

So here's the situation:
I'm installing systems furniture panels with electric running through them
Harness: the box that attaches to the panel that everything connects to
Base Feed: the main power feed that attaches to the harness
Jumper: extension cords that run power from and to each harness
Vendor: my moronic customer whose skill set is picking up a phone
Designer: the one who drew the plans and decided which parts were needed

So I see the first run. Base feed into harness, jumper going to next harness right and jumper going to next harness left. Okay, so far so good. Now we run into our difficulty. They just copied and pasted the left jumper, but skipped the harness that it was supposed to connect up with. They had nothing going down to feed where a harness should be, no harness there, then a jumper going to the next panel that had nothing connected to it.

This was clear as day to me. Obviously the designer just F'd up. She forgot a couple of harnesses. The vendor actually shows up on site, 4 hours late, but hey, he actually showed up this time. I show him the problem. He doesn't believe me, I must be missing something. I teach him how to read the plans, I mean hey, this is just your job to know how to read these things, and I'm just the dumb installer who only knows how to turn a screw, but let's try this out. You see right here where it says harness, you see how it says 94" jumper from that harness to the next. Okay, now you see how it says 94" jumper from nothing to the next harness? Okay, so how come here it required a harness, then on the next one, this 94" jumper is supposed to cover an additional 48"? Oh, ummmm, ummmm!?! Okay, let's look at this in the real world. You see how the 94" jumper just reaches that harness? You see how over here the 94" jumper just reaches the point where there should be a harness? Oh, ummmm, ummmmm!?!

So he has to contact the designer to see what she had in mind here. Dude, SHE FUCKED UP, wake up and smell the reality. Oh, well are you sure the parts aren't on the other floor. DUDE! I have already distributed all parts, they are not on the plans, they would not have been ordered, they are not on the packing slip, they did not get ordered, THEY ARE NOT HERE; THE DESIGNER FUCKED UP!!! Are you sure you don't have the parts? Did I stutter, did I sound unsure, am I speaking english?

I give him a list of the parts we need. He wants me to check to make sure they aren't here somewhere. Yeah because even though they weren't ordered, even though they aren't on the packing slip, maybe, just maybe the manufacturer just decided to throw in some extra parts for free and they will be the exact ones that you are after. Yeah, it could happen.

So I let him know that if he can't come up with some way to gain the 48" that we are short, this is my line in the sand, I will not be wasting any more time trying to make sense of an obvious error. Okay, he accepts this. Just check to see if I can find the parts But we're now done, I can get back to the rest of my insanity without having to put up with this crap anymore.

Until of course the magic of the smart phone kicks in. Emails from him, emails from his boss, emails from his boss's boss, emails from my boss. All wanting to know if I'm sure. All wanting to know if the parts are here. All wanting me to let them know if unordered, non shipped items will just somehow appear out of thin air.

[Ghel]

I would have been like "Sure, I can check. It's not like I can work on this project without the parts anyway." If they're going to waste your time, you might as well waste theirs, too.

I run into similar situations at work pretty often, too. Where a colleague ought to know how to do a task, but skip steps for whatever reason. I try to assume other people are competent, and I'm always disappointed when they demonstrate otherwise.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Well at least if I see a phone with a sledgehammer sized dent in it in the parking lot later I know who it belongs to.

I swear EH, I don't know how you put up with such levels of bullshit.

[MoonCat]

This is where you do the equivalent of "going into the back to check" and actually just take a break for a while, then come back and say "I checked. Nothing."

They ask "Are you sure?"

Take another break. "Yep, I'm sure."

Repeat as needed.

[evilhomer]

Well at least if I see a phone with a sledgehammer sized dent in it in the parking lot later I know who it belongs to.

I swear EH, I don't know how you put up with such levels of bullshit.

I was handed a stress card today (one of those ones that you hold and it changes colour). Green is okay, blue is depressed, red is angry, black is ready to kill someone. You have never seen a darker shade of black.

So this one just keeps giving and giving. I completed the job yesterday and had to do a final walkthrough with the client. She made the clueless moron vendors look like geniuses. The 5 minute process of the walkthrough took over an hour, constantly repeating myself to drive a point home, then when she finally gets it, she asks the same question.

So after this clueless moron finally gives the okay and I am freed from this hellhole, she decides to go for a wander. She cannot see a desk we installed because the user has already put it in use and has their stuff on it. My assumption is that she sees this desk, sees all the stuff on it, and thinks it's an old desk. So the vendor sends me a ridiculously long winded email detailing every aspect of this table rather than just asking about it. But I keep my reply simple - "Yes, I am well aware of the table, it was definitely installed and currently in use by the station occupant".

Pretty confident, definitive reply, so further discussion required right? Yeah sure. So he sends me a scan of the floorplan, that he photoshopped to add a couple of circles and arrows in case I'm just that stupid. Okay, let's put this one to rest. Yes, we got the legs, the legs came in 2 boxes, there were 2 legs per box, we took all 4 out of the boxes. The surface was the same as all other workstation surfaces, so we chose one. We screwed the legs onto this surface, all 4 of the legs. We put the table close to in place. We could not put it perfectly in place because the station occupant had boxes in the way Tuesday. By Wednesday, the station occupant had moved the boxes to the table was placed in the exact location that the floorplan showed it to be placed. By Wednesday afternoon, the station occupant was making full use of the newly installed table and had multiple items on top of it. I believe the client is simply confused because it now looks like a table that has been there a long time, but as I said, it was definitely received, it was definitely installed.

Okay, maybe I went a little overboard there, but the matter is closed... right? Nope. His reply, "but I can't see it in the photo". As you can see from the floorplan, this table is on the opposite side of the room from the new workstations. It is behind existing panels. It can't be seen from that angle. I didn't consider a 48x24 table to be a significant enough item to require a photo.

Then his boss chimes in, replying to the email where I just said I don't have a photo. "Do you have a picture? I sure hope you do " I suppose she thought that adding a smily would make up for being so annoying. "No Diane, as I just stated, I don't take photos of insignificant items. We take a few quick photos of the overall project and that is all. If you require detailed photography of each individual item installed, we have to be advised and we can factor the time required to do so into our quote." I felt like chipping in "maybe if you could actually show up to site once in a while you could see things for yourself and you wouldn't need a photo of everything" but I figured I was already pushing my luck with the 'adding to the quote' line.

Yes, this is the waste of time that I need when I'm already on a tight timeline.

[evilhomer]

So as I said with my opening line, mistakes happen, as things turn out, this one was all my mistake. Contrary to popular opinion, I am in fact a human being, I don't know everything, I'm not perfect. When I'm not managing a group of movers who don't know how to do their job, act professionally, don't know how to follow simple instructions. When I'm not managing a group of installers who don't know how to do their job because they weren't hired as installers, they're just guys who bought drills. When I'm not managing a group of installers who know how to do their job, but choose not to because they are sub-contractors and will be working elsewhere tomorrow. When I'm not ridiculously stressed from dealing with this and facing a ridiculously short timeline because these jobs are scheduled under the assumption that all workers are top level. When I'm not dealing with all this and I actually have time to stop and look at things and think about what I'm doing, I can see things more clearly.

The standard method for running jumpers is to run them across the baseline. Naturally, this is how I assumed things were planned. But this particular system has a secondary pathway that I didn't even see the first time around. It wasn't until today when I got the new parts in and began to install them that I found this secondary pathway and from there it was clear as day how things were designed to have been run. My re-design still worked, but it was unnecessary as the original design was in fact correct.

So as things turn out, I F'd up. But the vendor, who is there to assist and clarify any details that are unclear, offered no assistance or clarification at all. (Probably because he doesn't know the difference between a jumper and a skipping rope).

I told my bosses that I screwed up, if the vendor has a problem with the extra parts and the extra service call, go ahead and blame me. But if anybody really wants to drag me across the coals over this, fuck you. This is what you get when I half to work with and manage a bunch of halfwits, and I don't get any support from those that are there to provide it.

[mjr]

Hey, at least you admitted you messed up. That's far more than you can say for your co-irkers and "clients".

[TheSHAD0W]

Yup, you fucked up by not being psychic and not immediately seeing this unusual setup. 9_9