So, What You’re Saying Is… This Could’ve Been An Email

My boss’s boss tells me that I will be the person to make, order, and ship new business cards from a specific website. I’ve only been at this company for a couple of months, but apparently, it’s my burden to bear. I’ve only done this a couple of times, but it should be relatively simple, right? It’s not rocket surgery. 

My boss’s boss contacts the IT guy to help me get set up, and he says he’ll be right over for a meeting about this once he gets the template set up on the website on his end. [IT Guy] and I exchange a flurry of emails with times and dates and whatnot, and I am eager for the meeting. 

Two weeks go by. At one point, [IT Guy] is actually in the building, but unfortunately, he cannot make it for the meeting, and he apologizes to me, saying he’ll get to it. 

My boss’s boss eventually sends me an email asking if [IT Guy] ever got to me; I reply that, no, he hasn’t. My boss’s boss thanks me politely, and I don’t hear anything else for another week. 

That week, I’m looped into an email chain BY [IT Guy] saying he’ll be there on Wednesday. I scroll down in the email chain to find that my boss’s boss is unhappy and has more or less ripped [IT Guy] a new one. 

I write on my calendar for that Wednesday: “Meeting with [IT Guy] to go over business cards.”

An email appears in my inbox early that Wednesday afternoon from [IT Guy]. He apologizes and says he got caught up in a meeting, but that we’ll have the meeting tomorrow. I reply that it’s fine — I’m not busy anyway — and I wait until Thursday. 

At 10:00 am on Thursday morning, I get a text on the Teams chat from [IT Guy]. 

IT Guy: “Hey, about the business cards. Can you get into the website?”

Me: “I need the password; that’s the only thing I’m missing.”

IT Guy: “Oh, here you go: it’s [password]. If you go to the cart, you can find the template down at the bottom under ‘Hold for later.’”

Me: “That’s great. Thank you!”

IT Guy: “No problem. Let me know if you have any issues.”

Right away, there are issues. 

Me: “Hey, [IT Guy], I can’t find a way to save this as a template. Once I put it through, it’s gone.”

IT Guy: “Yeah, I found that, too. Can’t help ya with that.”

Me: “Okay, well, can you send me the files for the template?”

IT Guy: “Sure! Here you go!”

He proceeded to send me five different image files. 

I figured it out eventually, and, with no help from [IT Guy] whatsoever (other than the password), I got the business cards made and ordered in two hours… and three weeks. No meeting necessary.