Let's focus. So what happened. My conversation with Brian the TPM lasted maybe 30 seconds. I asked, 'so you're on it then?' meaning overseeing the contractors managing the files, he said yup. Mark the sales guy never talked to me at all. Never explained the risk. The millions at stake. How yuge this account was. Oh and, key: this isn't a marketing research gig. At all. It was a database management gig. The kind that built the company up from nothing. Managing b2b loyalty programs. Earning points redeemable for golf clubs, trips to Hawaii, whatnot. There were a couple hundred employees at the company doing this, going back decades. Why did Mark tell the AM 'hey bring it over to this team, they can do it!' No idea. He never talked about it with me, like a professional would. For all I knew it was just a simple number crunching gig. I don't even know how they could just 'move' it, tactically. No matter.
So my contractor Nagu was working on it. I don't know much about it but I know the ensuing meltdown colossal clusterfuck. And it goes, a something like this. There was a master spreadsheet xls that listed all the dealerships along with whatever other info, esp their earned points. These dealers were obsessively, insanely, focused on their points. Their own salespeople were earning the points but the dealers had dealer level spiffs for selling the most cars, test drives, whatnot. Their own bonus points system. All maintained by a single master spreadsheet. One that now resided inside my own team. Brian was overseeing Nagu or was supposed to be. Rookie manager mistake: assuming stuff. Anything. Such as: Brian is proofing whatever Nagu is sending out. Double checking. QA. You know, the absolute minimum work a TPM should be doing. That's their job. That was my assumption ergo didn't think about it much. But as we all learn along the way: when we 'assume' we 'make an ass out of u & me' (get it?).
Nagu was sorting the xls by state or whatever. Back in the day, if an xls column was highlighted, then sorted; only that column sorted. Not the accompanying dozens of other columns. They remained static.
Ergo, Nagu sent out a wildly incorrect 'dashboard' report to hundreds of auto dealers around the country. This may read like a minor issue. If you think it is you've not been paying attention. There was a volcanic eruption across the country. That's according to the east coast account manager who, again, owned the overall relationship. She went fucking ballistic. My company's entire management chain, every level, knew about it.
There was an emergency meeting that afternoon, with:
- my boss Gregg, who is functionally retarded
- his boss Mary who wasn't much better (an HR temp from 30 years earlier who got promoted over & over; Peter Principal in action)
- Brian my TPM
- Mark who brought this fucking nightmare onto my team without telling me
- not Nagu, I didn't want her there, we were in damage control
- A few other director level peeps with a stake in this revenue
- The ballistic AM on the blower
Here's what occurred. The AM shrieking over & over 'how was this possible!! why did this happen!! you are risking my entire livelihood!! this is risking millions of dollars' and so on. That went on for 10 minutes nonstop. Jelly?
Mark literally sat in the corner & did not say a peep for the entire meeting. Fucking coward as usual. Brian spoke a bit. I spoke a bit. Mary stared at me for the entire meeting. Glared, actually. Gregg was as braindead as usual. There was no recovery to this. The dealers were going apeshit coast to coast.
But my job was saved. Gregg was thrown under the bus. He had nothing whatsoever to do with this mess for a change. However, it did allow Mary to use as an excuse to undo her piss poor decision to hire him a year earlier. She demoted him 2 levels to a generic project manager. This solved nothing of course other than hoping he would quit. Mark skated. Brian skated. Nagu knew about it but prolly not how serious it was. My handler at the contractor co that placed Rupa & Nagu with me met me for lunch where I was depressed as hell. She didn't care. I was paying that co $20k a month or something obscene like that. She made out nicely on my gig by then.
I skated also, other than the stress. My co had invested a mil or more in my startup ergo they weren't going to chop me. I have no doubt it was considered though.
I told Brian, had to spell it out: fucking nothing leaves this team without others double & triple checking. The fact I had to spell that out to him was not just a bummer, it was a broken trust issue. A few years later, after we had both moved on, I saw him in the lobby of Target stores HQ in downtown Minneapolis. I was pitching my wares there; he had a job there. We chatted for a bit, general pleasantries. I always dug him, but he fucked this up royally.
Managing others sucks donkey dick. There comes a point where incompetence can no longer be hidden. It gets exposed. And managers get paid to fix that shit. But no amount of cabbage is worth the stress. You dig?