We have all heard this before “give credit where credit’s due” and if you are unfamiliar with the phrase here’s the definition according to Collins Dictionary: “you are admitting that you ought to praise someone for something that they have done or for a good quality that they possess”. This story isn’t funny, yet it is more like a dark comedy. I know I ought to tell you funny shit, but hey! You’ll relate to this one and it will boil your blood. This is one of those stories that you hate yourself because you didn’t do anything wrong – on the contrary, you did all the right things, but in the end, it all felt like pissing in the wind because they didn’t credit you when it was due!
To set the scenes, imagine you inherit a huge client, with high demand and very few clear objectives and guidelines. It is terrible, right? Now, as the new guy with a peer of fresh eyes, you’ll notice errors and you’ll come up with new ideas to straighten the ship. You want to make an impact and earn your client’s trust as well. So, I did the same thing. Spent lots of time and energy reviewing the account, talked to people who worked on it before, just to get an idea of why we do what we do. In the meantime, I was getting all kinds of ad-hoc requests from the client.
Don’t want to preach to the choir, but if you ever worked in a client-facing role you probably experienced this: some clients are quiet until they get “the new guy” on the account and then they start bombarding him/her with requests. Sometimes they know the answer, but they want to try it one more time with the new guy. Sometimes they do it because they got new ears. Either way, it is a challenge and a good time to set the expectations.
Anyhow, I made some radical suggestions and recommendations to the client. Looking at my plan it sounded like we are reducing the service, but I was confident that this will indeed increase our productivity and boost our numbers as well. In the short time working with them I realized they are very number-driven. I promised them that this is a better plan, and they agreed to it. After two quarters, numbers were three times more than whatever they had for the past few years. They loved it. My team loved it because they were working smarter and we could actually show them some progress.
I’m not the type of person to work for accolades or awards. I love what I do, and when I accomplish my goals or my client’s goals in this case, I feel pride, satisfaction, and joy. I have nothing against awards, and I won a few of them, but I’m not driven by it. I received all kinds of compliments from the analyst team, my manager, and peers, and when the client said they are planning to visit us, I was over the moon.
That day, I dressed up, showered, shaved, and lots of cologne! I planned the whole day for them, and for the main event, I booked the biggest conference room and I invited my manager, and other colleagues to come in and listen. The other reason was that because the client’s ego was so huge, and they loved the audience I had to stage this and invite as many as I could, give them food and snacks, so the client felt great about themselves!
Towards the end of the meetings, my main contact whom I describe as nothing but a bully, overzealous at times, started boasting about their partnership with us. Fine with me, anyone in that room knew that this is my account and my manager and the analyst team knew how much time I spent on it and our accomplishments were obvious. When he started, I thought he’d give us props for the great work we have done in a short period of time.
I was dead wrong! He started off comparing the past two quarters with last year’s results and his fucking conclusion started with: I came up with this idea to do…. And as the results we are seeing huge increases in productivity and efficiency; you SOB! Not a word about me or the team behind his account, not a damn word! I was irritated, I didn’t even want to stay in that room, I looked at the analyst sitting across the table and shook my hand and they did the same. I looked at my manager, he smiled, one of those bitter smiles that is harsher than a thousand f-bombs.
The funny thing is he never claimed that it was his plan in an email or during one and one calls or monthly calls with the teams. I guess, he wanted to show his boss that he is big-time. Like I said he ego was so huge that it consumed all his humanity and morals.
Inherently Funny! 