Work Lesson

[livingdeb]

Today at work a bigwig came up to me and asked if I could make him a list of a certain kind of data. I said I didn't think so, but that I thought another guy had made such a list for some reason and he could ask him.

What I would have done in his position would be to ask the other guy. But I'm not a bigwig, am I? And most likely I never will be. Do you want to guess what he did instead?

What he did instead was to make me promise to get him this list. After I had just told him that I didn't know whether it was available.

So, I called the other guy, who said he did still think he could find that old list, and who asked me who had requested it. I told him it was Firstname Lastname. He responded, "Oh, good Firstname." Yikes! Someone else is worse?

Then the other guy brought the list and its explanation directly to the bigwig.

Did I mention that this request came at 4:41 in an office that generally closes down at 5:00? And by closes down, I mean you can stay late, but you'll need a key to get back in and then you have to call campus police with your secret code within a certain amount of time or they'll send someone over.

I feel I should be learning a lesson from this somehow. I suppose the lesson should not be that bigwigs are idiots to be avoided at all costs. I suppose the lesson should not be that I should kiss my boss's feet for protecting me from this when he is there. I am probably supposed to learn that bigwig time is too valuable to waste by trying to involve them in the mechanics of getting what they want. They need answers fast and when they are around, I need to become a yes man.

Ick.

Comments

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

I too am discovering some of the intricacies of interacting with bigwigs. These bigwigs are doctors; their time is more valuable than ours, literally, so we have to really bow down to them. Even though I'm only an intern, I observe the delicate matters all day. There are administrators to guide the techs, but the techs are basically at the mercy of the physicians, and it is not uncommon for the physicians to speak to the techs rudely at times. It's like they forget that they, too, put their pants on one leg at a time. They're just regular people (I think... I don't think they're robots or gods, but I haven't opened one up).