True Story

I have been given the thankless task of compiling a report on an outside program model which my organization is supposed to be implementing. No one can seem to tell me exactly how many departments in the organization are using said model, how long they’ve been using it, or how many clients have been served therefrom.* In exasperation, I contact one of our finance people, A., to find out which departments have been billing against it. And here we go.

Email from A: “It seems to me you should contact accounts payable person, B. If you don’t get the answers you need, come back to me.”

I dutifully email B. I then am cc’d on an email from B. to Finance Person C., the sum total of which is a forward of my email with the addendum: “please advise.”

I then receive an email from C., which says, “A. should be able to help you with this.”

I email back, “A. is the one who told me to contact B,” cc’ing all three.

I then receive an email from A. saying, “I’ll look into it.”

Holy mother of God. This exchange took half a day. It is like I have been sucked into some bizarre circle of hell from which I shall never be free.

Quite honestly, I really think there is nothing for it right now but to eat some ice cream to calm my ravaged nerves.

* Made it up. Seems to me that if you can say, “herewith,” you should also be able to say, “therefrom.”