18th August, 2003.
"These components are all assigned under warranty to these unique pieces of equipment and can't be transferred to other equipment. How will we inventory them?"
"Make a note in the database beside each item so that you know which piece of equipment it belongs to."
"But that's a lot of work."
"If you want to know which bit of equipment they relate to then that's how you'll need to do it."
"But they're not assigned to specific pieces of equipment."
"You just said they were."
"Yeah, but I didn't mean to."
I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.
A client wants a very specific product very urgently that's only available directly from the manufacturer in the USA. The Cow-orker is on the job. Pity the fool...
"Oh, this guy's website is so dodgy! There isn't even a price list or an order form I can download, and he won't open a credit account for an organisation on the other side of the world that he's never heard of and never dealt with before! How shady is that?"
"How does he want payment?"
"He wants us to give him our corporate credit card details and he'll charge it. Then he'll send us what we've paid for. So he reckons, anyway."
"Why can't we pay it by credit card?"
"Because he has a really shonky website, and he's in the USA! I'm not going to stay here until 10pm at night so I can phone him with our details!"
"We don't need to. If he can send us an invoice or a quote, we can send him the card details by fax. Purchasing have done it that way before."
"Will that work? I mean his website is still under construction, and that just sounds so dodgy! I'm going to call the client and tell him he'll have to order something else because we can't process this."
"No, just e-mail the guy in the US, ask him for an invoice, and then let Purchasing worry about it from there. It's what they're paid to do."
"But have you seen his website?"
"I just spoke to A***** about that order for P***. The one from the USA? And she said to forget about it, we're not going to do it, and that P*** will have to buy the more expensive product."
She rings P***. He is unhappy, to say the least. The Cow-orker hangs up, confused.
"I don't understand, he's been told by management that he has to buy something that costs five times as much, is harder to use and isn't compatible with any of his existing equipment. I thought he'd be over the moon."