Love to all.

If you want to get on my bad side really, really quickly, be one of those people who has a job with just a teeny bit of power, and excercise that power to the fullest. Here’s the quick story.

• A billion dollar fashion and fragrance company owed my firm some money.
• We had been trying to collect for a couple of months, to no avail.
• The person we had been talking to told me not to talk to anyone else in the company except for her, and that she would let me know if and when she found anything out from A/P.
• This same person picked up her phone when I called, and said: “Oh. Um. I don’t normally answer my phone.” And hung up.
• The same person said I was not allowed to talk to A/P.
• Two months after we proactively sent this person of invoices and supporting data, and followed up weekly, she asked for the same info. Again.
• I eventually decided not to work with this firm again, regardless of eventual payment.
• I told this person that I had respected her wishes to be the point of contact, but that I could no longer respect that if she didn’t get back to me. I gave her one business day.
• She didn’t get back to me.
• Using smtp querying tools, I divined the non-standard email addresses of the CEO and CFO.
• I contacted the CFO and CEO, opening with the line:

First of all, I’m sorry this is the way my firm is being introduced to you. Collections work is my second-to-least favorite aspect of my position here at [my company]. (…) In spite of the fact that we are small (but growing!) we absolutely cannot allow ourselves to ignored, nor taken advantage of by any company, regardless of size. With that said, the intent of this email is to speedily get paid what we’re owed, and move on to happier things (like getting excellent jobs for our wonderful talent).”

• I then detailed the problems at hand, quoting the emails from the people who had given us the runaround.
• I followed up the next morning, asking the CFO to let me know the scoop, so happiness can prevail.
• The CFO of the billion dollar company wrote me a nice email saying he’s checking with A/P.
• While that’s happening, I get a call from my original contact, who, after ignoring their committments and his own promises, called to lecture me on “process.” It was a fascinating thing, listening to this person who had lied to me try and tell me that it was my fault, and that even though he and his group never responded to me, it was I who clearly didn’t understand how much work his colleague did to try and get us paid.. Eventually, I said: “I appreciate you’re providing all of this detail, but why didn’t you bother telling me any of this for two months? Because no matter what you are saying now, I had to contact your CFO in order to get you to call me.
• The colleague referenced in the last point (the one he said worked so hard to get us paid) writes to give me an A/P contact and tell me that she is submitting our invoices to A/P for the first time. Oops. So much for everything the guy said in the last point.
• Someone else from A/P calls me. Unbelievably nice person. Said the CFO called and asked her to fix our problem. We fix it. Check is processed and being mailed.
• I write the CFO and say thank you.
• I write the original contact to tell him the CFO fixed everything. I close with:

I’m writing to say that it appears we’re all set. I’m sorry I had to contact Steve in order to get things accomplished, but it’s my responsibility to the firm to make sure that we’re treated with the same level respect that we treat our clients, vendors, and employees.

Big, small, international, or NYC-only, everyone should be treated kindly.

Thanks for the business, and I wish you the best of luck.

• The CFO write me back to say “You’re welcome!”  Exclamation point included.

The moral of this story is simple. All because you have a little bit of power, that doesn’t mean you have to use it to prop yourself up.

Also, little dogs can bite, too.

Love to all. Even you, George and Dani.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Business.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.