Favorite Work Phrase #8

"Pressed Enter"- the moment at which someone finally grasps the significance of the situation. Phrase coined by my coworker Shari

Real Life Example

Today I was working with a supplier to get plaques made for supplier awards. I've dealt with this company for years, and they have always done a great job. Unfortunately, the couple who ran it retired at the end of last year and sold it to someone else. I spent lots of time today going back and forth with the new person over errors with the proofs. It really is a pretty simple job. The company has the general layouts from last year, and we supply the exact verbiage to use. However, they kept messing it up. We'd mark the errors and send them back, and either the errors wouldn't be fixed or they would make new errors! We went back and forth several times by e-mail. The manager who'll be giving out the plaques was frustrated, and so was I.

I finally called the guy and asked him "What's going on with these plaques, and how can we make this better?". He was defensive, blaming US for the problem. Hello, YOU are the one not doing what we've asked. He then had the nerve to say "I don't know what you want". Here's a clue- focus on those squiggly lines we keep writing on the pages- they are called words. They tell you what we want. I then also said he should call if he had questions. I added "I know it's hard to proof your own work. Is there someone else there who could do that?". Of course, he didn't like that either. He also said he was busy doing other projects besides mine. I never said we were your only customer, but we expect quality work. Let's just say the entire conversation did not give me warm fuzzies. Finally I said we'd send him everything marked up AGAIN, and I suggested he do the changes this afternoon, then come in tomorrow, proof them (it is much easier to proof your own work after you've done something else in the interim), and send everything back to me tomorrow.

As soon as I got off the phone, I told the manager giving out these plaques "We are finding a new supplier next year". She agreed. Several coworkers had overheard the conversation, and they were amazed someone would be that rude to a customer.

Well, low and behold, not long before I left today, I received an e-mail from the supplier. He said he was sorry, he'd been having computer problems that contributed to the errors, he apologized if he came across as rude, etc. Yep, as my coworker would say "Old boy pressed enter". At some point he realized that being disrespectful to a customer with a $1000+ order who is only asking you to do your job is probably the wrong way to go.