Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Urgent Messages

I normally do not rant about my day to day work life. In fact, I take great pains to leave details about what I do out of this blog. (All the better to remain anonymous...) But, I can't take it any more.

Our e-mail allows you to mark messages as "urgent," which colors the message. Our voice mail system also allows you to mark messages as urgent, which brings them to the front of the queue when someone picks up their messages.

Because I have the maturity level of a 13 year old, if you mark your message as urgent and it's not urgent, I will respond to you last. Yes, you heard me correctly. You get bumped to the bottom of the list.

Here is a handy guide to help you determine if the e-mail/voice mail you are sending me is urgent or not urgent.

Urgent:
There's a board meeting in 30 minutes and I just found out they need the latest turnover figures! Can you help?

Not Urgent:
There's a board meeting in two weeks and I just found out they need the latest turnover figures. Can you help?

Urgent but exceedingly annoying.
There's a board meeting in 30 minutes and even though they asked me for turnover 2 weeks ago, I'm just now getting to you.

Urgent:
I have an employee that I just caught stealing computer equipment. Help!

Not Urgent:
I have an employee that I'm thinking about terminating at some time. Can we meet to discuss it?

Not Urgent:
How much vacation do I have left?

Not Urgent:
How come Bob gets more vacation than I do?

Not Urgent:
I heard a rumor that there might be layoffs sometime this year. Am I on the list?

Not Urgent:
Am I vested?

See, there are lot more things that are not urgent than are urgent. I have yet to get a vacation question that is urgent. Yet, the people asking tend to believe that all such questions are.

Stop it. You are annoying me.

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