My cell bleated loudly. It’s a message from my boss. As if the very essence of life itself was not suck enough at that particular moment, the contents of this message confirmed my worst fear.
“We need to update some data, please come to the office earlier tomorrow morning.”
Update again. How many times until now? Probably a thousand times.
In the past few days, we were in a deep trouble because of some silly reports. Rumors about reorganization and rightsizing spread like wild fire this year. In last conference, S announced that if cost control couldn't make our situation better within three months, the company had to make the last move. And we all knew what that means. With the dramatic speed the sales have dropped, we seriously doubt any cost efficiency could help. Under such pressures, our boss made a decision. He asked us to record all the activities we have done for the customers----internal and external----in our system. Just think about it, what would HQ take it if we only report several requests from the customers, but meanwhile we have 14 headcounts in our unit? Of course at that time we never thought this move would bring us so much troubles.
After HQ saw the records in our system, they assumed that all these activities were the service we delivered to the customers, so they should be charged. They required the sales to collect money by this figure. How could it be possible? The records we registered are ten times of the requests confirmed by the customers. The gap is terrible huge. I never saw Key Account manager could be this furious. He screamed bloody murder when confronted my boss. To be honest, my boss was not power enough to cross swords with him. “Don’t you know no-pay-no-delivery? How many times we have to emphasize it? ARE YOU INSANE?” he shouted louder and louder. For a moment, I thought he would blow up---literally. At that moment perhasp it’s not a good idea to remind him that no-pay-no-delivery was quite a joke, it is something most flexible---related to the situation at hand, to the shifting moods of the authority and to the volatile relationships with the customers.
This disastrous meeting had inspired office-wide panic, frenzied preparations, meetings, gap analyzes, reports, discussions… on and on, had lasted for a whole week. As far as I could tell---for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Sometimes I heard them arguing heatedly over the table, but my minds flew away. What a waste of time. If the records could be adjusted, what’s bother to keep them? Just conjure up a figure to make all the units look good, and everyone would be happy.
Finally, they came to a conclusion. The report was finalized. When I thought everything was over, I received this message. I couldn’t feel worse. I don’t mind overworking, but I do hate to waste my time.
What I had to conjure this time is an analyze report. The version from HQ indicates that our sales dropped dramatically comparing to last year. We need our version to make it look not so bad. I wish I could perform magic. How could I change the existed fact? Gloomily, I made a thorough analyze. My mind felt a little dizzy by all these figures and records. Then I found if I compare thed records in Q1,2008 to Q4,2007, it would not be that terrible. I handed the result, and wished it could do the trick. Otherwise, I didn’t know what else I could do. After another round of consultation and discussion, I was required to specify the reason why we choose to compare these two. I didn’t remember what I wrote----totally nonsense anyway. But it finally worked.
Since when my once exciting and challenging job has turned into the most boring, blind act?
