Don’t try to help me, just do what I ask you to do

So today I asked a colleague to perform a certain financial function for me that I do not have access to on the financial system, which is so simple it should have taken him less than 3 minutes to do it. I needed a credit note against a particular invoice due to an extremely long-winded negotiation with a client that has taken a year to resolve, and has now finally been agreed upon.

All that needed to be done was a credit note to be created for an amount which I specified, and for him to let me know it was done in the system so I could print the note, get a partner to sign it, scan it in and send it to the client. But no. Things are NEVER that simple.

2 hours later he calls me back with a long story about how he cannot reverse the invoice because it is in the previous financial year, and it is only for a part of the amount. Of course it is – this is why I asked for a credit note. The invoice is NOT supposed to be reversed, it is supposed to stand, and only a portion is supposed to be credited.

I explained that to him, in as much detail as I had put into the mail, and he still did not understand.

Now I realise that NOBODY is indispensable, but there are a few people at my office that we simply cannot do without. The person he is replacing is one of them. She is the only person who knows the financial system, and who knows what is going on, and who actually listens to you when you ask her to do something.

She doesn’t try help me by doing something else (assuming I must have used the incorrect term, and substituting another in its place), and she also understands the urgency of things at all times.

One of the things I hate most about the office environment is people who either are completely fecking stupid, or those who try help you by doing something other than what you have asked them to do because they think they are helping you. STOP IT! You are not helping. You are causing a problem and making work for everyone, including yourself.

Think people. Think!