The commonest sense and a lesson in Frenglish
Hello my lovelies,
After my last syrupy post about how delighted I am with my job I thought I should probably share a more Rondaesque post before you all begin to think I've lost my damn mind. FWIW, I probably have lost my damn mind, but rest assured I'm still a snarky pain in ass.
I really do love my job and for the most part, my co-workers. There are, however, times when we do not have the necessary skill set internally to fulfill a role, so we have to contract with external candidates and/or external recruiting companies to help us staff a particular role. Most of the time this works out fabulously, MOST being the operative word here.
One of my Denver-based projects is requiring that we provide a local resource to fill a very common, yet highly technical IT discipline. Our internal recruiters didn't have any great local candidates available immediately, so we engaged another partner. The resource was vetted for technical skills and we decided to proceed. The day of the kickoff meeting the account exec and I met the contractor for lunch, provided some very specific information about what the role would and would not entail and verified that he knew where the client was located and roughly how long it might take to get there given afternoon traffic. Yeah, so I'm pretty sure you get where I'm going with this. Five minutes after the meeting was scheduled to start the naviational genius called me to ask if the client's office was off of 5th St (not the real address), I attempted to sound polite(ish) and inform him that the client's address is 7654 5th St, so by default the client's office is indeed off 5th street. At this point he says, hmm, I'm on 12th St. WTF! It just so happens that there is an exit off the freeway for the street he needed to be on and there is not an exit off the freeway for where this genius ended up. I know that Google sometimes provides some questionable directions, but I also know for a fact that had he entered the address into this phone the googles would have basically said, take the exit for the street the office is on, take right, drive to the address, take a left and park your damn car. It is literally four blocks off the freeway in a big brick building. This is NOT hard!
If I was six months into this job rather than six weeks I probably would fired him on the spot then marched into the clients office making up some bullshit excuse about a flat tire and apologizing for needing to reschedule the meeting, but I didn't! FMYLIFE! When he finally arrived 15-minutes late, he contributed nothing more than very heavy breathing to the technical discussion. I'm not extremely technical, so my objective in bringing a technical resource to a meeting is NOT so we can all listen to him mouth breathe.
Earlier this week the buffoon came by the office to pick up his laptop and help me plan the project. Things weren't exactly going well, but when he asked me who would be providing project direction then had the cojones to restate the question after I assured him I would be providing the project direction, by saying, but who will be providing leadership and making decisions for the project....yeah, uhhmmm, so about that, let's just say I am very excited to meet the NEW local technical resource that will be joining my team next week. I realize this poor bastard had no way of knowing how grandiose my ego is, but when he had the audacity to ask "who would make decisions" I was stunned. I don't think I ever appeared to be a wallflower in any of our previous interactions and pretty much all I ever have to say about who will make decisions is BITCH PLEASE!
....and that's yet another reason why I suck as a human being. XOXO
My other favorite (I use that term VERY loosely) coworker is a sales rep based in Chicago. This 60+ year old woman has very blonde hair and speaks with an accent reminiscent of New Jersey meets northern Wisconsin. That's odd enough, but for some bizarre reason she only says hello, goodbye, please and thank you in some sort of Frenglish.
Her accounts are all located in the Central and Eastern time zones, so I have a lot of early morning project meetings with her. You all know how much I love my coffee, but I assure you there is not enough coffee on the planet for me to not be annoyed when she interrupts my meeting, joining at least five minutes late and in a sing-song tone, cheerily announces "Bonjour all, Jane here..." I don't speak French, but I am pretty sure that the French people have a way of saying that entire phrase in French. Thing is, we aren't in France and we don't speak French, so joining a meeting, preferably on time, and speaking English, which is the language that everyone else on the call is speaking would be perfectly acceptable. Other option, if you join the meeting late is to keep your damn trap shut!
Lucky for me, she doesn't just speak Frenglish, she also writes in her emails. Here are a few examples. FWIW I do recognize that the third one is technically all in French, but I promise you the rest of her, mostly incoherent email, was not in French.
Add in Bob s’il vous plait
Merci beaucoup for your support…both of you!
Merci buckets mes amies!
Merci b!
At a happy hour in Atlanta we were talking about some of the more interesting characters in the office when I said that I call her "crazy-Jane." Our HR Director patted me on the shoulder and said "oh, sweetie, that's the nicest thing anyone has said about that woman in years." When a statement like that comes from HR I know these really are MY PEOPLE!
Hope you enjoyed my latest cuppa crazy. I was planning to get out and run some errands today, but the weather is cool and rainy, so I decided to skip the grocery store (FWIW skipping the grocery store doesn't take much convincing) and schedule date. If anyone needs me for anything today I will most likely be in my bed with a book. Best date ever!
Until next time
XOXO