THE TIM

Corporate

I hate dealing with Corporate America. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but the hoops that I have to jump through sometimes to accomplish simple tasks is absolutely ridiculous. Today I have a demo machine being installed at a very large company. This company has 22 locations all over the U.S. and their headquarters is here in Lynchburg. This is a $50,000 deal and as you can imagine needs to be handled with care. The following is my brief conversation with a guy from Corporate.

T “Hey Mark this is Tim in Lynchburg, how ya doing man?”
M “Good Tim, whats going on?”
T “I have this customer that we are doing a demo for today and I need to get the delivery paperwork from you to have this deal approved. “
M “Do you have an order number?”
T “No, why do I need an order number, it is just a demo to close. I wasn’t aware that I needed an order number”
M “Well sorry Tim I can’t do anything until I have an order number. You need to contact your admin so that she set up the delivery. Once the delivery is confirmed and she has an order number I can fax you the paperwork and then you can deliver.”
T “Are you kidding me? I was under the impression that since the equipment is here in the office, that we could just talk with you, have an order generated and then move on. Why is this so difficult?
M “Sorry man I don’t make the rules, I need an order number to set up this delivery.”
T ” Ok I will call my admin and get this rolling.”

Next conversation:

T “Goodmorning Lori, I hope your doing well! I need to get a demo order put through the system.”
L ” Ok did you have the customer sign the Assest agreement form?”
T ” No, what the hell is that?
L “Its a form that the customer has to sign agreeing to take responsibility for the equipment while in their possesion.”
T “Ok can you send me that form and start processing the paperwork so we can get this moving. Its 9:30 and I told the customer we would be there by 10:00.”
L “I can’t start any of the paperwork until I have this form signed by the customer, then I have to put all of this through our system and it generally takes about 3 hours.”
T “Wow! This is fricken retarded! I have to get the customer to sign this, fax it back to you, you send it through the system, it gets an order number, which gets sent to Mark and then you say OK and we are good to go?
L “Exactly! Thats how it works.
T “Wow, all that for an OK? Seems a little much. What would happen if I delivered the equpiment without anyone knowing and then just sent the paperwork back to you after Mark and I recieved it?
L “You would get fired”
T “How would you know that I did that”
L ” I wouldnt!


GEEZE!!!!!!