Quality, is quality, is quality, is quality, is quality....

Not to be confused with my "Quality" post of a similar title, this is indeed a new story that demonstrates yet again the kind of shit that happens at my job on a regular basis...

At the end of June, a guy really fucked up some super important shit at work. Actually it was technically two guys that did it. K signed off on something very important, and then P signed off verifying that that very important thing had indeed been done. Except that it was discovered the next day that this very important thing had not been done at all. It was such a huge occurrence that it sparked hours and hours of meetings of bosses, not only in our office, but also our Chattanooga office, as well as our client who was affected by this horrific mistake. K and P were kicked off the project, feeling lucky to not be fired for such a monumental error.

The purpose of all these meetings was to discuss how this event could have occurred, and what could be done to prevent it from happening again. At the end of all this, after an estimated $100,000 of man-hours lost, the bosses were certain that we had gone above and beyond to prevent another such tragedy. But alas, a similar event happened again two weeks ago on a Wednesday night. The error was discovered by A on Thursday morning, who after looking at some paperwork determined that R and D were to blame. R and D were kicked off the project, and a similar string of events occurred again with meetings and interviews of coworkers to corroborate sides of the stories being documented. And then the following Monday morning, A came into the office and declared that after thinking about it over the weekend, he believed that it had actually been him who had made this terrible mistake not on that Wednesday night, but on that Thursday morning...about an hour before he "discovered" the error.

So now our company not only fucked up really, really important shit twice in less than two months, but now we sound like idiots because the guy who was originally documented as discovering the error is now saying he was actually responsible for it, but just doesn't remember doing it like an hour prior to finding the mistake. So it wasn't a huge surprise to any of us when our client decided to strip our office of any of this work and to transfer all the responsibility to our Chattanooga office. But...Chattanooga doesn't have enough knowledgeable people on their staff to handle all this extra work load. So the solution was to send some of us from the Chicago office to the Chattanooga office to do the work. Yes, the same people who work on the team that fucked everything up are the people who are going to continue working on this project, only now from Chattanooga instead of Chicago, as if that would make all the difference. Quality.

So the group of us were called into a meeting on Tuesday by our supervisor and our boss to let us know that they were looking for volunteers to transfer down south for approximately three months. The boss asked for a decision from everyone in the morning. No one stepped forward. Two days after this meeting, our supervisor send out an email to our team saying that they were still in need of volunteers and he needed to know within the hour if our decision was Yes or No. I emailed back No.

Everyone had been stewing about this all week now. Whispering amongst each other while our supervisor was away in meetings, people kept telling me that I was the most qualified in my position to be chosen. I am one of the five draftsmen on my team, but here is the breakdown of us. Two of those guys don't specialize in the area that's needed. Yes, they know how to draft, but it's harder to draft something that you don't understand. So that leaves myself and two other guys. One of those guys is new, only with the company for three months. He is fresh out of college and still learning so, therefore, not an experienced choice. The other guy has a 7-month-pregnant wife. That leaves me.

So I asked my supervisor on Friday morning if he knew when he and the boss would announce their decision about who would be going. He looked confused and asked why I would be concerned since I hadn't volunteered. I responded that I didn't think anyone had stepped up, in which case they'd be forced to send people who didn't want to go. He said that one of the non-specialist guys had volunteered and made it seem like I had nothing to worry about. But ultimately the decision is not up to my supervisor. It is up to my boss. And he's not really the sensitive type to say, "Let's send the less qualified guy who volunteered so that Lauren doesn't have to be apart from her newlywed husband for three months."

So for now, this story is to be continued. I hope to have the conclusion on Monday. And until then, Jim and I are just thinking on the bright side...that if I am sent away for three months, Jim will be happy to come visit me in the city that has the best Bob Evans restaurant in the country, as well as nine different Waffle House locations. So I guess it wouldn't be all bad :)