SAY WHAT!!!????

Lucky me. Somehow I managed to the get two most world-famous difficult business departments to please in the entire corporation. It's like playing wack-a-mole every day. I get one side settled, the other starts up.

Now, admittedly, I have the honor of supporting our national sales force IT applications. And although the product we sell is something EVERYONE in the US MUST have, it is not necessarily an "impulse" purchase. These guys are, at the least, formidable opponents who think they have to "hit back first" with IT and degrade, flog, insult, nag, and pester in order to motivate our team to work 150 times harder than they normally have to (nevermind THEY cut our IT budget by 60% this year and RAN OFF two of my best developers!!!) Anyway, I digress.

Now, my team struggles daily to maintain our professionalism in the throes of a large beaureaucratic (did I spell that right?) environment and deal with these Divas from Hell so each day is a challenge... and I, as the team leader proabably struggle the most since I have to deal with these dodos directly every day. Thought "hmmm, phone is ringing - let's see, would I rather answer it or chew off my own foot?...............pause........ well, I AM hungry......" Anyway.

I have a new short term programmer working for me until dec 31. He's a guy that is NOT a people person, and has nothing to lose and his skills are hard to find on the market(he KNOWS we need him.) Hey, what am I gonna do? fire him? I'm under tremendous pressure to have several projects done by Dec 31 and it takes a special person to withstand our environment.

So. I made the choice move of inviting him to a meeting with the business for which, admittedly, I was not well prepared.

Well, Ms. Business side #2 just lit into us as normal and of course, we do our usual round up back to the facts, just the facts, ma'am (this WORKS, trust me) and then she started in on the "new guy." If you don't have answers she likes immediately, things tend to get ugly.

He looked at her after a couple minutes, and leaned across the table and said:

"MA'AM! I don't like the way you are talking to me. Nor do I appreciate you treating me like an idiot, and frankly, I think you need to watch YOUR ATTITUDE LADY >o" Then he said, "I don't know who the hell you think you are, and you just need to come down off your high horse because I am NOT going to deal with you!"

I didn't know whether to smack him or kiss him.

She LEANED across the table and said "WHAT???!!!!"

Then she looked at me and said "You need to DO SOMETHING!!! Deal with your employee!!!!"

I was powerless to do anything because I didn't know whether to laugh or cry LOLOLOL
I was like the proverbial dear in the headlights!!

Well, needless to say, it got kind of blurry from there as I did my usual re-direction and deflection (I am the politician of the group) and when the moment came where I could release "Mr. Personality" to go finish something else, and was feeling really bad about the whole thing...after he walked out of the room she looked at me and the other participants and said:

"DOESN'T HE KNOW I'M A BITCH????"

Well, I guess he does now. And then, I didn't feel so bad. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty good...

Ahhhhh, The joys of corporate life.