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Friday, August 21, 2009

A Mockery of the Copier Industry: NOT My Words

This photo is a creation of Steve Reisman.

Steve is a talented photographer and in the copier trade. I encourage you to check out his work here. And hopefully, I will use more of his work in the future.
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Sarcasm out here is cyber-land is a difficult convey, the writer takes a leap of faith that his readers will recognize it.

Here at DOTC, I take many things to task, and believe it or not, I re-write articles DOZENS OF TIMES, stripping out and watering down what some soft, timid souls may consider to be vitriol and venom.

So, when I see mockery and sarcasm applied by others I take note - when the example hits home, right in my backyard, I like to share.

I stumbled upon a good example via a Twitter Tweet.

I am going to cut and paste, these are not my words; a customer took the time to document his experience as witness to an interaction between a copier tech and his service manager - on site.

Enjoy.

Friday Guest Mock: Dear Copier Repair Area Manager Doing A Performance Review Of Your Employee In My Copy Room

2009 August 21

by mockers

I know that in this era of fast, responsive, and agile service that you are doing your best to model 21st century “go-get-’em” business habits to your employees.

May I suggest that your showing up at my place of business to do *your* business of delivering a bad job performance review to a guy we’ve been waiting two days to see may not be the best use of putting your management training skills “on the road?”

May I further suggest that taking calls from your office while in the middle of passive aggressively calling your employee “lazy” and “unmotivated”… all while he had the innards of our multi-thousand dollar paper shredder spread around the copy room doesn’t give me much confidence in the work that has been, or was being, done?

May I continue? I can’t print anything right now anyways so I’ll just keep typing.

The part of the conversation that went like this:

Employee: “Well, how long did it take *you* to get promoted to supervisor?”

Supervisor: “Three years. How long have you been with us again?”

Employee: Silence

Employee: Silence

Employee: “Three years. I’m seriously disappointed to be receiving this news today.”

*sound of something snapping, either in the employee’s head or inside our only tool for producing printed material in the whole building.*

Supervisor: “I’m sure you are.”

Listen buddy, I know that your two years of community college puts you into some kind of elite squad of management gurus.

I also know that your getting to wear the long-sleeved oxford shirt with your company’s logo rather than the golf shirt your employee was wearing means you have some kind of one-up on him, and us evidently since we are now your version of the back-shed.

However, my “take-away” to use your cheesy, uncreative, and stupid business-speak was that you just gave me a half-hour crash course in how *not* to manage, or lead, a team.

Once I clear up this paper-jam I intend to print a copy of this letter to bring to your office while you are in the middle of trying to do your job.

Sincerely,
Glad I Work Here and Not There

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Honestly, you can not make this stuff up!



Contact Me

Greg Walters, Incorporated
greg@grwalters.com
262.370.4193