Saving the World, One Salesperson at a Time

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Today and tomorrow, I will be spending the day teaching one of our applications to a bunch of inside sales representatives.

The purpose of this instruction is to make these associates more self-sufficient, so they don't have to engage an engineer every time they have a simple addition or upgrade.

Yeah. I'm sure that'll work out exactly as planned.

The fact that this team, in its various iterations, has received this training on four previous occasions with no discernible result has apparently escaped the leadership team.

Hint to individuals in a leadership role: You're personifying the definition of insane on this one. If you don't hold these people accountable for performing the tasks they're being trained on, then the result will be the same: They won't do them. Instead they will continue to do what they've always done - send the work to my team.

And while it's fabulous to be needed, I'm giving up two days of production to conduct this training, and I'd like to feel like my time isn't being completely wasted. Just sayin'.

4 comments:

mattw said...

I love it how sales people just think there's some kind of magic IT wand that can fix everything or do everything they want RIGHT NOW. I see that kind of stuff here, and I'm not anywhere near an IT capacity. Good luck.

The Mechanicky Gal said...

Geez, you would have thought that you would be used to this, having to re-invent the wheel every time you transferred into a new nest o' shit when you were in the Navy.....
Isn't it nice to know that the Navy IS just a slice of society in general!
Yes, I am discovering just how craptastic the Navy policies are, now that I am in the REAL WORLD! It's amazin'

Jeri said...

Aren't you sweet? Volunteering like that. :D

Ilya said...

I've been in technology long enough to appreciate the fact that inept "business partners" are what keeps me in business (and well-remunterated, at that) :)