Friday, August 15, 2008

Work stuff

Legally, I can't give out any juicy details, but I want to share with you something that happened this last week.

A big survey was completed in June, and about a month later, the client told us there were problems with the data. I was all over it.

I did some serious digging in this data, and before I brought other people in to help out, I insisted that there was more to the story than what we were getting from the client. But it wasn't till the statisticians came on board that the client fully explained what they thought was wrong.

We worked our butts off - extra hours, weekend stuff, etc. And the client would not be satisfied. They finally told us they had lost all confidence in the data, so we buckled down and got more data. They originally told us that it was to be used as example data so we would know how to use the data we had gotten back in June. Then they turned around and said the new stuff would completely replace the June stuff and that the June stuff was bunk.

I suggested combining the old and new because the problem was essentially normalized and they rejected it without any hesitation. Instead, they would get even more data and use that instead. All of this new data was at our expense.

So today I go in to the office and the account manager tells me that they did end up combining after all. Any thanks to me? Of course not.

I guess it's gratifying that they would use my suggestion after all, but considering all the hemming and hawing they did about telling us the problem in the first place, and considering the amount of blame they put on me for convincing the account manager not to run additional data (like I have that kind of influence!), it's really just annoying. I am so glad I don't have to work with them directly. The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Thankfully, I know how much my supervisor and my boss appreciate me and the work I do. And I know that the only opinion that matters is theirs. It's really nice to have them stick up for me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that would REALLY stink...

That happens to me in J. High a lot.

Hope you're pregnancy is going good!



- Ethan

Kristin said...

I hear from my mother-in-law and heard from my Mom that this is happens a lot to moms of older kids as well. How frustrating though. Way to go coming up with a solution though. That is an accomplishment with their praise or not.