“Impossible” Is Not Looking Possible Today; Tomorrow Isn’t Looking Good Either

I’m an IT manager for a Fortune 150 company. We are literally the largest company in our industry, so keeping up with the technology demands is challenging at best. Today, we have a virtual town hall with C-Level personnel. One topic discussed is how we are leveraging technology to benefit our personnel, workflows, and clients.

I get an interesting complaint from a user. She’s mad that we closed her ticket after emailing her three times through our ticketing system and not getting a response. When a user emails us, we don’t see the email. It automatically creates a ticket, and we work from that.

Me: “I understand your concern. All we received from you was a picture that just said, ‘Password incorrect,’ and a message from you that said, ‘Please help.’ My agent needed more information, which he emailed you about three times.”

User: “Well, I didn’t see it! He should have called me if he wanted more info!”

Me: “When someone sends us an email instead of calling us, we like to respect their choice of communication medium.”

User: “It’s hard to keep up with emails when they aren’t in the same thread! The agent should have just replied directly to my email like a normal person.”

Me: “That’s not possible in our setup. Your email turns into a ticket. We never actually see the email itself, just the ticket it made.”

User: “The technology needs to change. That’s not good.”

Me: “I’m sorry you feel that way. We’ve had this setup for the last eight years successfully.”

User: “Did you watch the town hall today?”

Me: “Yes. I had to run one of the video rooms.”

User: “Well, you saw the part about merging technology with people to achieve goals more efficiently. You should take this feedback to [Chief Information Officer].”

Me: *Eyeroll* “I’m sorry, but I won’t take this to [Chief Information Officer]. She has to work with all of the IT issues and coordinate with all other business units. This type of thing simply isn’t in her area. Besides, it’s not possible. The system we use is not capable of doing that.”

User: “So, you are refusing to take my feedback?”

Me: “No… I understand your concerns, but you ask the impossible. The system we have works very well for our organization. I’ll have my engineer call you once he is available for the problem you have, but I can’t change our email system.”

The user begrudgingly accepted that she wouldn’t see the impossible done for her that day. The issue she was having was simply putting in the wrong username on our employee portal.