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I, too, feel the pain of being ignored and put off by The Great and Powerful
Purchasing Department. As a fairly new employee, I decided to be more
assertive than I had at the 15 or so companies I had worked for previously
as a contract employee. All I had to do was fill out two purchase
requisitions for software and training courses, have the reqs signed by 3
mucky-mucks, and then submit them to the Purchasing Wizard.
I'd heard that Purchasing was run like some sort of clandestine society that
refused to divulge their demonic practices and timelines, so the day I
submitted the reqs (Nov. 22), I made it very clear that they had to be to
the vendor by December 23, after which the vendor's price would double
(which was 100% true).
I showed up at the Purchasing Poobah's desk every day for four weeks asking
for status. He sent me to an underling each time. The underling told me to
talk to the Poobah. Every day, I was told to come back the next day, the
next week, the next month. "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get to that this
afternoon," the buyer said, then promptly pushed my paperwork to the bottom
of a burgeoning stack. I paced outside her office for a half hour. She
refused to make eye contact with me.
I sent Purchasing hourly e-mails, and never got a reply. I wrote long,
tedious CYA notes to my boss to assure him that the endless delays were not
due to my lack of diligence. He finally gave in and read my lengthy tale of
woe, and I heard him yell, "This is ridiculous! What's their problem?! Why
didn't you tell me about this earlier?" (Of course, I had...several times.)
I thought to myself, "NOW I'm getting somewhere!" He called the buyer
himself
The next thing I know, a representative from Personnel came to the boss's
office to tell him that the slow-moving buyer was in her office sobbing
because of "mean things" he'd said to her. Well, he says mean things to
everyone, particularly me. The buyer wanted to file a complaint against him,
though she knew it would only become fodder for the shredder.
Long story short...I saw this buyer put the two purchase reqs into an
envelope on December 23 at 4:30 p.m. but have no idea whether or not they
reached their destination. And I can only imagine how Purchasing will treat
me the next time I need to buy something. Does anyone have a ski mask I
could borrow?
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