An Email Haiku
Email can be great
But when you hit the send key
Be sure “To” is right

My company offshored it’s application development and support a few years back to an Indian firm. (Although I know offshoring is a politically charged topic, that will not be the point of this post, so do not go there with me! I’m a life-long Democrat, so just hush up.) I worked on the offshoring project, went to India, and helped plan the entire offshoring strategy with a terrific team of Americans and Indians who worked together very well.

Since then, some of us have worked successfully with our Indian partners. Some? Not so much. Prior to the sale of my division, I was one of the success stories. I had a counterpart who worked for the offshore firm, but who was located in Ann Arbor. (We worked on a 70/30 mix -70% were in India, 30% in the U.S.) We had a shared vision of what we could accomplish and were working very closely to make certain that our goals were met.

When Raj was asked to move to New Jersey to work with another group, I was assured that the person replacing him was every bit as committed. “You see no degrading of the services. We continue to perform to what you want.”

Uh, may I say? Yea, right. Fuck.

The degrading of the services? Happened nearly immediately. The continue to perform? Sure, if that’s what you call playing internet chess after coming into the office at 10 a.m. And I know that chess is a tiring game. So, of course, leave at 4. Make sure you take a break for lunch. I mean, an hour or 90-minute break is expected - you have to get enough nourishment to play that last match.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting with my new partner’s (and I really use that term loosely) manager. I outlined (with appropriate documentation) exactly what issues I was facing. I let him know that the performance of the onshore part of the offshore team was, to say the least, shitty.

He assured me that checks would be put in place and that he would work with me to assure that we got back to the high level of performance that we had enjoyed with Raj.

That was then. This was yesterday:

Email from Offshore Partner counterpart:

Hotfessional,

I wanted to bring to your notice that XXXXXX support team got to know about the projects ProjectShutDown and ProjectStartUp through John Smith, the XXXXXX Enhancement Manager. He informed the PM to invite me into the meetings. As per my understanding support representation needs to be requested by the PM for any project where XXXXXXX provides support to the applications(as per process). By having formal representation support can get involved into these projects, provide the required inputs for the project and be aware of the impact to the applications.

Request you if proper support representation be requested and support teams get involved in the projects.

My response:

Of course.

Hotfessional

I then sent this to the PM (project manager) and copied my ‘counterpart’:

I think you’ve got his now, but can you make sure that there is an XXXXXXX Support Rep (email MyPartner) on ANY teardown or startup meetings you’re running?

MyPartner, Project Shutdown has no application support ramifications because we do not support anything in DatacenterA.

thanks!
Hotfessional

A few minutes later, MyPartner’s manager, who had assured me, a mere two weeks ago, that he understood my frustration and would do anything in his power to make certain that we continued to work well together, came running into my office. In Chicago, because that’s where he sits.

ManagerXXXX: “Hotfessional, I just sent you an email. You delete please.”
Hotfessional: “Um, sure. I’ll delete it. [click, click, hit delete]. Okay, it’s deleted.”
ManagerXXXX: “Thank you.” [leaves]
Hotfessional: [Clicks into trash folder, finds email, and reads this:

Hi MyPartner,

“Of course” is fine. What next steps is she planning to take?

Can you ask her to write all her PPM group an email stressing on this and laying out the steps that they need to follow when initiating a project? Request her to mark a copy to you such that you know that the communication has gone out.

Even after that if projects do not involve you then escalation is warranted

You might want to give the steps as stated in support representation process

Um, oops.

I don’t know if I should be more pissed off about the fact that he didn’t believe me when I said “Of course” and have faith that I would actually do what I said …or… that he doesn’t know enough about our email system to know that delete doesn’t actually delete, it just moves it over to a holding folder until you empty the trash.

At any rate, I’m betting that he checks to make sure he no longer selects “Reply to All” instead of “Forward”. Dickhead.

—- And for those of you who are wondering - those are direct cut/pastes from the actual emails. Only the names of people, companies, and projects have been changed. So, yes, for all of you cringing English Majors? This is what email has done to our language. —-

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