Unfiltered Story #162513

(I work at a team that is involved with a lot of topics within our company, either with making policies or with writing reports about it. Therefore some other coworkers think our team knows everything and come to ask us questions about anything slightly related to those topics. One of those topics is the internal digital ‘library’ which contains a lot of forms, policies, guidelines. Our team is involved in the general policy what and how things should be in that library.)

Coworker #1: *from another team* “Is [Coworker #2] working today, I have a question about the library?”

Coworker #3 & Me: “No, she is not here today, she will be here again on Monday. But maybe we can help.”

(We know some advice for common issues, although it is not our subject.)

Coworker #1: “The article on [internal news site] about [subject] has a link to the library that doesn’t work.”

Me: “That is not really something [Coworker #2] does. You need either the communications team to edit the article or you need the IT team if link is right but doesn’t work. [Coworker #2] is not involved with the technical side of the library.”

(Those teams are both in the same building as we are, so nothing complicated.)

Coworker #1: “I think I will come back for [Coworker #2] on Monday.”

(I heard from my coworkers that [Coworker #1] indeed came back on Monday, only to get from [Coworker #2] the same advice I gave. So [Coworker #1]’s issue could have been solved a few days earlier if she had just followed our advice.)