The Importance of E-Mail

Ok, it's been one of those days. For anyone who has ever done any type of telephone support for anything, you know the days I'm talking about. Non-stop calls, everyone is an a snit and you and your co-workers are doing everything in your power not to verbally abuse the people on the other end of the call. Add to that the fact that we are converting an entire bank from the software they're used to, to our software. That increases the pressure just a bit.

So, I'm doing alright. I've managed not to put the verbal smack down on my callers, even the lady who thought I said my name was Jasmine. (Although I did have some nice words for her after I hit the end call button...) Other than that, I'm ok. I'm set. I'm composed. Until the stupid people call. You may think calling them stupid is harsh, but hear me out.

Like I said, we're converting an entire bank (Corporate Headquarters, regional headquarters, all the brances, etc.) to new software this weekend. We've been preparing for this since the beginning of the year. Over the last two months, every employee has been given logins to the new systems they'll be using. They were all sent an e-mail telling them to test their logins. Then they were all sent another e-mail, reminding them to test their logins. Finally, they were sent an e-mail saying that, the week before the conversion (this week) the systems would be taken off line and they would not be able to test their logins. If they tried to test their logins, the server would disable their account and they would need to reset their password on Saturday, when the systems come back online. We can't even get into the systems. They're down. NO WORKY!

So, now, a day before everything is supposed to go live, hundreds of people, who have put off testing their logins until the last possible second are now trying to login and they're NOT SUPPOSED TO BE!!! THEY DIDN'T READ THEIR E-MAIL!!!

Now, I understand that large corporations send countless e-mails, most of which can be ignored by most departments, but you would think they'd pay attention to the ones which deal directly with a MAJOR CHANGE to EVERY DEPARTMENT!

It's been all I can do to keep myself from yelling into the phone and saying, "YOU NEED TO READY YOUR DAMN E-MAIL, MORON! IF YOU'D READ YOUR E-MAIL, YOU WOULDN'T BE HAVING THIS PROBLEM!"

Why can't people follow instructions?