"NOBODY EVER SAID MASSACRES WERE EASY! If you want easy, then commit suicide. Successful massacres take dedication, planning..." - 'Frank', Handy Hints for Messier Massacres
So friday, the CIO's assistant leaves me a voicemail. I call her back, and find out that the CIO wants to schedule a meeting with me. I tell her, hey - I'm free all day Tues and Weds, so just send me an appointment for anytime those days.
So today there is another voicemail when I get in (we had yesterday off). She wants to schedule a meeting for sometime today. I again tell her, any time is fine, send me an appointment.
She calls back in like 3 minutes and says the CIO just actually wants to schedule a call with me. I'm like... Okayyyy well anytime is fine for that too. So she send me an appointment for a 15 minute call at 11:15 (note that this is about 20 minutes in the future).
At 11:10 she calls me to say the CIO stepped out of the office and he can't do the call now. I'm like fine... if it's just a call, I'll be at my office all day and that he can just call me whenever he wants, I'll be here. She says that she'll send me a new appointment, is 3pm okay? I say fine, she sends it.
A new appointment. For a time when he can call me. Scratch that, when SHE can call me and patch me through to him.
Is this normal? Why does a phone call need to be scheduled?!
josh [email] said at 11:28 AM 02-21-2006: I dunno if it's her or the CIO that is too blame... I feel like he wants her to schedule this call as oppossed to just making the call.. or something? Actually, I have no clue.
atchafalaya said at 11:48 AM 02-21-2006: This is normal I've found.
What would happen if you called the CIO up? If I was the CIO and I wanted to talk to you and you called me when you found out, I think that would please me. I dunno though. It depends on if this CIO is government or private. Most CIO's in the private sector eschew red tape, while government CIO's eschew people that try to circumvent it.
jake [email] said at 11:50 AM 02-21-2006: This sounds perfectly normal for a midlevel company--
Not that it's healthy, or functional, but its normal.
Some of it is the struggle of exec-assistants to keep their bosses on top of small level things while they handle big things... Some of it is pure status games.
I think you (politely) should be less accomodating--say you want to carefully manage your workload for the next day and a half, and give two or three ideal times. This will hopefully send the message to her to stop wasting your time with postponements, and help her help her boss get the phonecall to actually happen.
(And you may not be doing yourself any favors by being totally flexible: that can send a message of "eh, whatever, my workflow is not that organized or important.")
woody [email] said at 11:51 AM 02-21-2006: If it was me and I actually booked a phonecall it would be because I wanted it on my calendar. That way nobody would try to overbook me and hopefully people would know to leave me alone. I often put things on my Outlook calendar that only involve me. It guarantees (wishful thinking alert) that I will have the time set aside to do it.
blake [email] said at 11:54 AM 02-21-2006: yeah this is normal, but it's complete bullshit...
I deal with this crap ALL of the time. People that aren't my boss, telling me/asking me to do different stuff. Not anymore... go to my boss... that's it
chuck [email] said at 11:57 AM 02-21-2006: Totally a normal situation in offices today. Got to have the Blackberry buzz you for a meeting/call time. My SVP actually came to my office to tell me he wanted to discuss a couple things but didn't have the time at the moment but proceeded to step around the corner and have a non-work-related chat with another coworker.
meredith [email] said at 12:01 PM 02-21-2006: I used to schedule these kinds of things for a woman I temped for in advertising. Her work day was literally entirely scheduled by me and I would print out her calendar for her in the morning and lay it on her chair for her before she got there. People would call me up and try and get time slots with her. Sometimes she would come out and change something around and I would have to send a multi-person voicemail around to all of the parties involved and then field the subsequent calls afterwards from people questioning the change.
I'm guessing it's the CIO's fault and not hers. I do agree that it might help you out if you were like okay, these are the only times I am available. Because if this guy has her trying to schedule several things, she may have said, "Well, Mr. S said he was available all day but we scheduled you for 3..." and he probably said, "Well, move that call then and slot this person in."
You never know. But I guarantee that the CIO has given no thought to how frustrating this is for you. Nor will he.
boson [email] said at 12:08 PM 02-21-2006: josh this is some office space type shit.
Jake's idea is good; when you say "anytime is fine" what might have happened is that it gave the assistant the notion that you can just be tossed around... if you make up some arbitary time (yeah I'll be free after 3pm for the phone call.) they'll be more willing to actually make a real appointment.
dave [email] said at 12:56 PM 02-21-2006: they just want to make sure that security is on-hand for when you are terminated. trying to coordinate those guys is the real trick.
max [email] said at 1:44 PM 02-21-2006: My work consists of Alex; my boss, and Steve; my co-worker. We don't really have schedules. If it gets too hectic, we close the store and drink beer until it gets better. Sometimes I wonder if the extra money would be worth it. The more people there are in a business, the more types of BS you ned to learn how to overcome.
emily [email] said at 2:56 PM 02-21-2006: Some people just aren't all there. My boss will call me and tell me about an e-mail she needs me to respond to and then she'll read the whole e-mail to me.
I'm like..Can you just forward the e-mail to me?!? So annoying.
neilbert said at 3:43 PM 02-21-2006: The CIO is just trying to be more important than he is. Nobody sets up appointments on when they are going to call you, especially if it's something important.
If James Cameron was to call you, you might get a receptionist telling you that "James Cameron's office is calling you and then patch you through to him." but they would not set up an appointment for him to call you back.
