Today I would like to point out the emphasis of remembering the pen. What does it mean to remember the pen? Well, this is a new term I've coined thanks to some poor service recently from some of our vendors at my work.
On more than one occasion a vendor has delivered something that I had to sign for, and forgot his pen. Apparently it is evident that I must be psychic and grab a pen each time the doorbell rings.
Remember the pen means to pay close attention to the little details of dealing with your clients. I add to this, terrible email communication.
Please don't write the body of your email in the subject line. Especially if you work for a technology company. One might say these are pet peeves, but I feel their general peeves, and quite frankly...I would like to put peeves on layaway for a day when I am less busy at the office.
Back to the pen-less vendor. When the scruffy jump suit wearing, doe eyed, 40 something year old man handed me the paper to sign, I said "Do you have a pen?"
Vendor "no"
To which I replied, "you really should have a pen on you..."
Vendor, "It's in the car."
I went to get a pen, at which point I signed the document, then I turned to him and said, "do you need this?" Yeah, it was snarky...and a bit rude. But you know what's rude? Making me walk 100ft to grab a pen because you don't care enough to remember the details.
A bit later, the Account Manager for this vendor came to visit me. She was visiting per an email I sent earlier asking for more information on something. She brought a giant book of information. All the information I could ever dream of knowing about this vendor. BUT she couldn't answer my questions. She didn't do the research, and thus wasted a good 30 more minutes of my time trying to find the answer in her big book of information. I've now learned to never have a big book of information. Also, who still carries a big book of information? Isn't that what the web is for? Show me a small page of information on an iPad.
I digress.
There went 40 minutes of my life because they didn't remember the pen.
2 comments:
Truest story ever told. I hateeeeeee that. When some guy comes to me about a commercial and I ask him which one. He says, "I don't know, can't you just look it up by the code?" I could but that will take like 15 minutes of my time/your time/company time... idiots!
People are SO ignorant sometimes.
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