Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Circularity of Work

Something happened today at work that happens all the time in my office. To some extent it's probably unavoidable, but it can be a bit maddening. All names below have been changed to protect...well, me.

So yesterday, Peter asked Rich for some pieces of information for the SEC. Peter suggested to Rich that I might be a good source for some of the info, so Rich came and asked me to get it to him today. This morning, I did the research and emailed him the info. He forwarded the email to Peter.

Just now, Peter asked Kristin, a woman who works with me and is slightly junior to me in the department, for some of the exact same information. Fortunately, Kristin came to me to ask for help with it, since she wasn't sure exactly what he wanted, so I was able to call up Rich and let him know Peter was asking for this still. We don't know if Peter didn't read the email, or if he did and still had questions, or what, but it's kind of odd that he would ask Rich to ask me, and then would himself ask Kristin.

Usually it's more like our boss Steve asks my immediate boss Ken for something, Ken says he will get me to do it, he assigns it to me, and then Steve asks my pseudo-boss Brenda for the same thing, and she asks me for it, and I say, "Is this for the same thing Ken is asking me for?" (since sometimes people just happen to want the same thing for their own diverse purposes) and then Brenda and Ken both get annoyed at Steve because he can't remember (or doesn't care) that he already asked Ken to handle it.

I'm sure this happens in every office, and sometimes it can't be helped. Today it was just amusing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe so, Mosch, but if she's ever found out, you're going to have to be snuffed, too.

Not me, though. For the record, I have no idea who these people are.