Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth, and Then Also Asking for a Saddle

MSB's "client" - a company that has agreed to pay her to perform a service that she may or may not perform at some point - has invited her along on a trip. Because a group of them are going together, they have chartered a plane for the trip. A chartered flight of this length will cost at least $40K and probably more. The plane is scheduled to leave from near their office, in a city about an hour's plane flight from us. She accepts the invitation.

But then, instead of being a normal businessperson, she decides that since they have chartered a plane already, they should just fly down here to get her. Why should she have to fly to them? She makes this request. They respond with a resounding "no."

So she learned her lesson, right? Not right. They send her a menu of the food being offered for the flight and she tells them that she needs a special meal that is not on the menu. "I am sure they can make it," she tells them. They respond that no one is ordering items that are not on the menu.

This is one of the rare times that she has surprised me. This is a new low of not understanding the rules of business or polite society. My mind is, once again, boggled. Boggled.

Special Skill

MSB called the entire team in for a meeting the other day and explained to us the she has a "special skill" that none of us have and we are not supporting her special skill enough to satisfy her. This skill, according to her, is that she can call anyone in any company at any time and talk to that person. I will grant that she can do this for many companies.

The problem is that when you cannot effectively deal with people or cause them to enter into business transactions with you, these calls are fruitless. Especially when you, at least once per month, end up yelling at one of your potential clients on the phone and telling them that they are too stupid to understand the value you provide them (yes, this has really happened).

The jist of the meeting was the same as every other - that she could be so much more successful if only the rest of the team would help her more. Once you have run this meeting more than twice, you have failed either as a manager, a team member, or both.

The Importance of Customer Service

MSB has bombarded us lately with "in this economy, customer service is more important than ever" messages, which make sense are are totally correct. Her execution is poor, however.

Her client calls at 10:55 am. She is paged for the phone call. She responds, "Wasn't that call scheduled for 11 am?" The answer is that, yes, the call is scheduled for 11 am on the calendar.

"Tell him to call me back in 5 minutes."

Tried and true, go-that-extra-mile customer service, folks!

Brilliant Plan

MSB is pissed because she forgot an important detail about a client she was engaged with on a phone call. She has a terrible memory and puts the entire office through tremendous pain to try to minimize the negative effects of this deficiency. With this in mind, she concocted the Best Plan in the History of Plans.

"You guys need to remember things better! I never remember anything, so I need both of you to remember more. You always have done a good job of this, but I need you to do better!" Here is the plan - at once simple and extremely perplexing.

"Whenever you know something that you think you will not remember later, write it down on this white board." The order was greeted with complete silence - which she took to mean agreement with the Plan's greatness.

It's Been Awhile

Sorry for the long break in between posts, but MSB has been making a concerted effort to be, well, less sociopathic. We could all tell that she was trying very hard not to freak out and be mean to everyone. She even apologized to everyone for "the way she acts sometimes" on the Rosh Hashanah holiday. . . as she has done each year that I have worked with her.

This self-absolution of responsibility for her bad acts seemed to free her up to misbehave and her weirdness rampled back up in the last 10 days or so, but she was clearly still trying to keep a lid on it. . . until the middle of last weeek.

More Fun With Timeliness

MSB's Outlook calendar says she has a meeting in Beverly Hills at 4:30 pm - at least 30 minutes drive from our office, not to mention the time to get downstairs, get your car, and get on the road. At 4:03, she yells out to no one in particular, "I'm late! Gotta go! Gotta Go!"

At 4:10, she asks aloud, "Where is my bag? Has anybody seen my business cards [these are not actually business cards as they do not have her name or contact info on them - they are simply a card advertising a side business of hers]?" Of course this is the time to find these necessary items, when you are already 10 minutes late.

At 4:15 she tells her husband to go down and drive her car up to where the elevator comes down so that she can leave more quickly.

At 4:35, she yells once again, "Gotta go! Gotta go!"

She leaves the office at 4:40 saying "If anyone calls for me, I left at 4!"

The Fashion Police

About a year ago, I wore a brown dress shirt to work and MSB, upon seeing me, said "Isn't brown a kindergarten color?" I said I did not know - I still have no idea what that even means. That memory wa sin my head when I wore a brown casual shirt to work recently.

I was wearing jeans and the shirt when she walked by my office. She walked past, stopped and came back to exclaim "You look like a lumberjack!"

Weird, yes. But weirder still when you consider that at the time she was wearing blue Crocs, baggy blue "dress" pants (I use the term loosely because they are not appropriate for dressy occasions), and a lighter purple baggy shirt. I look like a lumberjack? You look like a full-size Barney impersonator!