her life as a robot

Some of my friends asked me if it was really a good idea to be talking about my job in a blog. I asked my boss and he doesn't mind as long as I properly describe how brilliant he is. Besides, the person who I didn't want finding out that he was being called an ass was copied on the email so the worst case scenario has already occurred.

Today I will  highlight another project manager who has since left her job, probably to become a customer service representative at PCCW. From my numerous telephone conversations with equally numerous customer service representatives that have resulted in likewise equally numerous futile results, I can assure you that she would shine at that job. She would perform spectacularly.

During her time as a manager of a major interdisciplinary project, she performed her job as something akin to a poorly calibrated mail sorting facility. Information would be received and sent out for distribution. "Please arrange a meeting between the civil and drainage disciplines," an email would read, and she would forward the message to everyone. The end result was that the civil and drainage team showed up for the meeting so it was no problem in her mind that architectural, structural and building services were all receiving corporate spam. 

My rock bottom of working with her happened when the client asked whether a requested kiosk had been included in the drawings. I replied that the kiosk had been added and attached a file with the item circled on the drawing in red pen. The project manager added my markup to the queue of drawing amendments and later insisted that I needed to update the drawing to show a circle on the floor around the item because it had been in my markup. "We need to match the markup that was issued to the contractor," she insisted. This went on for a month. Every other day she emailed me to remind me that I had not yet added the circle to the floor tile pattern and that I was delaying the issuance of the drawing amendment. At my wit's end, I finally called her boss who apologized and confided that he sometimes wondered if she was a robot.

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