Diary: 2024-01-18

 

 

Today was a mess at the office. As soon as I got to the office, I was called into a conference call about the messed up proposal. My manager, the sales person that put the proposal request together, the VP of sales and the VP of Operations. I don't think I will understand why some people get stuck on the problem and not the solution.

They wanted to drag Larry, the person that wrote up the proposal, into the meeting, but I told them not to as 1) he was working on the new proposal, and 2) I know he wrote up the proposal to the specifications that were available on the network. This last statement got the sales person all in a dither. She started saying that wasn't right as you can check the network and see the correct version is there. This caused a debate that went on for a good 30 minutes. I did take some offense when the sales team said the proposal team was incompetent. I finally spoke up. I pointed out that the last update date on the document on the network was yesterday morning before the presentation. It was lasted edited by the sales person. I then said the my guess is was this a simple accident as in our system, changes are not published until the user clicks "Update." The sales person, being new, might not have realized this. If we need to prove this, we can contact IT and have them check the prior versions for dates and authors. After management agreed to this approach, I then excused myself so I could go work on the presentation.

Fortunately, Larry managed to finish the proposal by noon and I spent the rest of the day and evening working on the presentation. It was a long day, but I am ready for the presentation tomorrow. My manager did stop by my desk and let me know that I was right about what happened. He also said that the sales team apologized for saying my team was incompetent. I am tired and going to bed early to get a good night sleep.

 

Cheers for now