This is not true all of the time, but it’s true often enough.
There was a question at work last week of whether or not we need to supply materials for some upcoming batches in a way that is counter to our normal way of doing so. This had been discussed previously, and my take away from those meetings was apparently different from someone else’s.
I thought that the consensus was that if everything worked out that way, it would be nice, but we would not go out of our way to do so, and our customer wasn’t requiring that. Someone else thought that since the customer had requested it, we had committed to doing so.
Had we committed to doing so, some paperwork had to be put in place. So there were two questions on the table: Are we doing it? And if so, who takes care of the paperwork? Someone else, under the assumption that we were going to do that, was insisting that I put the paperwork in place, since these batches are validation batches. I maintained that it’s up to logistics or operations to put the paperwork in place, since it’s a materials issue.
It was a legitimate question to ask and a detail that did need to be ironed out. Someone else is in logistics and it is his job to make sure stuff gets where it needs to be. But what pissed me off is that someone else accused me of not having my paperwork in order in the first place and asserted that I was lucky that he pointed this out before it was too late.
What. The fuck. Ever.
I obtained confirmation from a number of departments and also from the customer that we did not promise or intend to go the alternate material supply route and that it was not a customer requirement. In the mean time, tempers are flaring and emails are flying. This whole exchange also includes the other engineer in my group and the operations manager.
Someone else has been a little sheepish since. I’ve never had a problem with him before. We generally get along fine. I understand shit happens from time to time. But this has really left a sour taste in my mouth. It’s also reminded me that I should really make sure I have my things in order. I do anyway, but a little extra care can’t hurt.
The thing is, almost all the engineers have been in my role at some point, so they all think they know how it should go. Which is good in a way. But I’m here now with another engineer and a manager and we (and QA) will worry about whether or not we’re doing it right. I’m not telling you how to do your job. I didn’t rub it in when you scheduled all this stuff based on an expected shipment that we ended up not getting (like everyone else warned) and you freaked out because you had to reschedule.
Just sayin’.
