Rou

Dave is a vendor rep. He’s a big wig at said vendor. He “supports” us by refusing to allow any modification to his application or any of the servers that run it. If we so much as change one setting, they threaten to cut off all support for their product. As such, the servers suck, and are largely unpatched since they were deployed several years ago.

So… we want to do that. We work with the internal team that supports them to work a plan out to update them, and make them run smoother. We give it to the Dave, and his team. They look at it and, after months of hemming and hawing,  say that it won’t cause any problems with their application.

There was cheering and celebrations!

We begin to put the process in motion. Dave stands up and says NAY!

What the fuck? What’s the matter Dave?

Dave decrees that all of these changes are unsupported and will cause the sky to fall!

Which of course sets off a 4 day email chain of people demanding to know who did what, when they did it, and who signed off it. The results of this exhaustive search end with a stack of documents and emails all indicating everything was approved by the everyone, including Dave and his team of happy vendor fuckheads. Prominently included in the chain of emails is a laundry list of complaints trying to figure out why Dave is pushing back on this after he and his team had previously agreed.

Dave looks at the chain and responds with a ballsy retort: “Everything looks to be in order. Please give me the name of the person at <vendor> who is causing these problems so I can resolve the issue swiftly.”

Told you it was ballsy. I can feel the entire list of support staff hear all thinking the same thing. But one does not fuck with vendor relations over such a simple thing. Especially if you’re a peon low down the chain of command.

In one of the few shining managerial moments at this company, my senior VP of Technology, Gerald responds.

“Well Dave, the name of the person most responsible for holding up this project is… Dave. Since it appears you’ve already gotten yourself back in line with the rest of us, I’m going to mark the issue closed and continue with the project.

-Gerald”

The moments may be rare, but they’re fucking worth it.

****Names change to protect the stupid and the awesome alike