I wouldn’t have made an issue out of just one case had the contractor not been with the company for almost 9 months. Even so, had she performed the other tasks to our satisfaction without some of those tasks ending up with us because it has dragged on for days until my line manager has to reassign it to us, I wouldn’t really give a shit. Simply put, as long as the work is done, there is no reason to complain about the quirks of others!
Here are more examples of her dismal performance.
- Opval Installation
Opval is a program that one of the commodities trader B said he required to do his job. Surprisingly it has never been used in the Singapore office until recently. So after getting the install instructions from our contact J in London, I passed on the task for her to do. It was a relatively easy task, just run setup.exe. Or so I think!Unfortunately, J gave the wrong instructions for the first install so it didn’t install properly. She tried to reinstall it using the new instructions but for some odd reasons it will say its completed without an error but no traces of the program can be found anywhere – and that is for both the remove and repair features as well. And without even attempting to find a solution to this situation, she came straight to my colleague and I and asked us where the registry keys are when we also have no prior experience with Opval.
I am personally shocked (on top of being annoyed) that she didn’t even consider using the search feature of the registry editor. Simply put, she expects us to do the thinking and give her the instructions when she faces a problem. There was never any attempts of her own.
We thought we can make some people learn by leaving them to swim or drown. So we told her we have no idea what the keys are in hope she’ll find a solution on her own. In spite of this, she made no further attempt to find the solution other than one email to J. When J didn’t reply – probably as frustrated as we are – she didn’t even bother to continually pester the guy for an update even though she said she’s doing that in an email to my very head of department. While this predicament is no fault of her own (since J’s original instructions were to blame), it is the lack of initiative to seek solutions that really annoys me. In the end, my line manager instructed me to sort this out because the user has written an email pleading for a solution. I must give it to the user for his patience!
And the solution? It was as we thought: a matter of using the search feature in the registry editor to find entries related to the program and delete them. After those entries were removed, the setup program runs without any glitches.
Foreign talent? More like fallen talent. And a fallen talent who always remember to clear the call log on her desk phone everyday before she leaves to hide all her private chit chats but would forget all the outstanding tasks the next day she comes to the office!
- Secretary C’s feedback
The secretary was rather upset she was scolded by one of the managers when the contractor failed to turn on the video conference equipment on time and establish the proper connections even after being notified. And the secretary was adamant all her notifications were received because our contractor had accepted all the appointments in Outlook. Of course I didn’t fail to notice that on occasions she actually remembered to go and turn on the equipment, my other colleague had either reminded her or give her specific instructions to do so.And this complaint came in on the day after I took urgent leave because I lost my wallet. And right behind it, the secretary told me she had told the contractor to rectify a problem with a Fuji-Xerox color printer. The secretary was upset she has not gotten any updates on the matter until the next day and she was not happy that she needs to collect her printouts from another department’s color printer. She subsequently wrote an email demanding for a status update and only them did the contractor get her ass down to call and check on the vendor. Yet all the while she was at her desk and there were no other outstanding tasks!
If that’s not a lack of responsibility or failure to take ownership of tasks, I don’t know what to call it.
- Citrix Icons
The company has decided to move some of the services to our office in Europe. My guess is that it is to reduce some of the synchronisation and replication problems which has been plaguing us for a long time. Colleague M from the application support team emailed us – the desktop support team – and asked us to set up the Citrix icons for several users to test the remote access connectivity between the Singapore office and the server in Europe.As I had expected, our contractor ignored the email as usual, and I picked it up and find out the necessary settings for this task.
Having done that, I tested it out myself, and then informed the contractor to carry out the task, with detailed instructions attached. I gave her specific instructions to do it first for one group of users, because their tasks are not time critical. I copied M on the mail and expected the contractor to exercise initiative and work with him to do it for the remaining users.
To my horror, M came to me 2 days later and said his line manager is pressing him for an update and things are not moving. When I asked the contractor about the status, I was exasperated to discover that user N’s was still outstanding, because ‘N had no time for her to do it’. And it was the day before when N told her that.
WTF?! I am utterly shocked she didn’t even inform the user that this is just a 5 – 10 minutes tasks at most and it is not even disruptive – i.e. needing a system reboot. Must I even give her specific datelines to complete her tasks? Why can’t she apply the same enthusiasm she had for her private calls to the tasks assigned to her?
- Hummingbird Exceed Connection
User H reported that he couldn’t connect to a server using this client software. Our dear contractor went over, took at look at it, and came back and told me that no program was assigned to deal with the icons (which I already know!).Even while she has no experience with Exceed, to assign a program to deal with a file type is a simple Windows function. The easiest way to find out what program to open it would be to check another user’s system, and how to do it could be found by searching Google for the solution!
Sadly, I had to tell her that and she was back in a jiffy about another problem which prevents her from doing so. Frankly, this would have been the same result had I gave the user the same instructions over the phone! I was wondering why we paid her to relay messages! Let me go check if there’s a Cisco tag somewhere… maybe she’s a router!
While in the real problem was with the installation, I have never ceased to wonder just how in the world she managed to convince someone she’s right for this job!!
Anyway, I thank God that both my direct line manager and my Head of Department sees eye to eye with me on this matter and agreed that a replacement would be the best course of action. I also came to find out that quite a while ago another user, P, had already feedback to them and even to our regional head in Tokyo (!!!) about her.
Hopefully, by the end of April – and hopefully even earlier – I would see the last of her and my agony will end. Of course, with the arrival of a new contractor, I wish that will be the end all those incessant private chit chats and also the need to babysit a big baby!
Either way, since she liked phone calls so much, she should seek alternate employment… maybe as some boss’ secretary, or a receptionist or… with Comfort Delgro.
