Blergh Blog

I arrived at work this morning, clocked in and instantly noticed the coworker who opened an hour earlier was frustrated and exasperated over some problem. She’d been online at FedEx trying to track a shipment and retrieve a proof of delivery signature for the better part of an hour, but she was coming up completely empty handed. It seems the corporate office was calling and emailing and faxing and calling again over a company who used a credit card to purchase product, already had their bill paid, and still no product in their possession. My coworker was digging and digging in our system trying to turn up documents. I went to the other computer and clicked into virtual ledger cards and *bam* there it was; all nice and tidy with a big fat “confirmation completed” tagged to it and her initials on the header page. Apparently, she couldn’t get past the notion that “confirmation” of the paperwork doesn’t always equal physical completion of the job. I went into the stock room and looked on the shelf. Two of that product looked back at me. I went back to the computer and looked up our inventory quantities for it. Our branch showed “1” in stock.
Obviously, the paperwork was completed, but the product never shipped. That’s why there was no available tracking of the shipment that she could turn up. When I pointed out that fact, I might as well have been struck by lightning and left as a greasy little oil spot on the carpet judging from the look I got. I pulled the product duplicate off the shelf, stuck it in a box, slapped a FedEx label on it, and sent it out the door with a note of apology inside.
While I was boxing it up, the coworker made a phone call to the people that were inquiring and this is what I heard (as near verbatim as I recall):
“Hi. I finally found the problem. Someone here confirmed it, but never shipped it, but I’ve taken care of it. I made sure it went out this morning.”
Excuse me?? She did?? Um....what?
Wtf?
I looked at the clock. Only fifteen minutes of my day had passed, and it never got any better.