The Tuesday Tantrum

Welcome to a new weekly series on things that are making me a bit cross. It does come however with a little bit of a proviso. For a start, I can't always guarantee that it's going to be on a Tuesday. I can't say for definite that it will be weekly. What I can say, is that there is always something that is getting my goat. When I called it a weekly series, I was a bit worried that I might not be able to do it every week.

Now I've thought about it, I'm more concerned that it might be hourly.

Today's tantrum concerns an apparent lack of literacy in the working population. Or more specifically, some people being unable to FOLLOW A SIMPLE DAMN INSTRUCTION IN AN E-MAIL.

I hate to lift a veil of secrecy over my employment; really I'd like you all to believe that I swan around, making executive decisions, and shouting 'Buy! Sell! Buy!' into the phone, while I twang my Wall Street braces. However that is very far from the truth. Lean in close, so I only have to whisper. My job?

Not rocket science.

I run a team of people, all well educated, all used to working in an office, all with previous experience of very imilar types of work. No one fresh from school, all with tongues in their head, all capable of making rational decisions. Sounds marvellous doesn't it? Because I've got quite a big team, because both I and they spend a lot of time on the telephone, it's quite difficult to get everyone together so that they can all be told the same thing at the same time. Thus I resort to the team leader's fall back position; I send them an e-mail. That way, they can read it when they've got a minute, and if it's important they can keep it so they can refer back to it.

Again, not rocket science.

I'll give you a little example, and paraphrase it very slightly so I don't break some previously unheard of privacy law:-

All,

I know you'll all have noticed the problems with accessing certain data this morning. Systems are working on it, but they've managed to put a temporary fix in place. Double click on the icon below, and you will then be able to gain access. However, this will not save overnight - keep this e-mail safe so that you can click on the icon every day until problem is permanently sorted.

Any queries, please give me a shout.

See? It doesn't seem so difficult, does it? And just in case, the e-mail was titled something like 'IT Issues - Important, Please Read'. Like I'd send an e-mail that you didn't have to read. If I wanted to talk and have nobody listen, I'd just get married again.

And did it work? Did it buggery. Some hours later, one of my team asked if anything had happened about the problem. I asked if they'd read the e-mail. Oh? Had I sent an e-mail? Someone else deleted it without reading it, someone deleted it after reading it, someone couldn't find it at all the next day, although they'd definitely seen it before, one person thought it didn't apply to them and another one hadn't clicked on the icon because they didn't understand the instruction.

As well as having the tuesday Tantrum, I'm thinking of having Firing Squad Friday; I'd do it earlier but I need time to go and buy the ammo...

So, does anyone want to join in? Anything on your mind today?

Let's have a little rant and get it out of our systems...