Burden

When my officious colleague resigned from the company earlier this year, he had a few sales orders that required following up and prior to those sales orders being handover to the rest of the sales team,  I had told my Manager and that colleague of mine not to allocate any of his pending orders to me because I had a bad experience handling another ex-colleague's order in the past and didn't want to relive that experience, throw in the fact that I am now focusing more on the "Visual Merchandising" side of things and less on the "Sales", this is really not part of my jobscope.

But my Manager threw a project of his to me anyways and told me because it's a big project, the customer will probably need my help to arrange the furniture in the space when it finally arrives. It was a completely invalid reason because the customer bought office chairs, there is nothing to arrange, you literally just push the different chairs to their respective office tables, that's it. 

I took over the project very begrudgingly and that officious colleague of mine looped me into an email with the customer to officially introduce me as the new person-in-charge. After which, he forwarded all the email correspondences he has had with the customer prior and when I opened that email, there was literally nothing but 16 attachments...

... he didn't even bother to do a summary of the exchange he had with the customer so I can get a better understanding, not even a simple greeting, and from what I heard from my Manager, my colleague originally had no plans to send me this email, or had he any plans to inform the customer about his departure, he had expected me to take over the project completely blind and introduce myself to the customer on my own. So the fact that he has looped me in the email and bothered to send me this particular email is him already "doing me a favor".

Anyways, I open every single attachment to read through the email exchanges between him and his customer and I was already very upset about the whole situation of being assigned to one of his sales, but then I realize my dumbass colleague over-promised the customer the delivery period and that just pissed me off even more. 

Instead of informing the customer that the items will arrive 5 to 6 months after the order has been confirmed, he tells the customer the order will arrive in end April 2023, this was back in Nov before the customer even placed the order.

The customer ended up placing the order in late Dec and my colleague didn't bother to update him about the delivery period, when the customer stated that he is expecting to get the chairs in April, my colleague didn't bother to manage his expectations and inform him that due to him placing the order in late Dec, his chairs will only arrive between end May to early June.

This customer spend the entirety of the next 2 months before this project was handed over to me thinking he will get the chairs in April because my fucking colleague just couldn't be fucked. 

He knew beforehand that he will be leaving the company in February, so all these orders that will have issues, he just didn't bother cleaning up the mess until I called him out for it and told him that he had better sort this mess out before he left and handed this fucking shit to me. Initially he was hesitant and told me...

"Don't worry Tim, the customer is aware of the waiting period."

... yeah, the customer is aware that there is a waiting period, so he is expecting to wait till April,  not till end May - early June, which is when he will actually get his fucking chairs. 

It was so infuriating, so I told him once again to rectify the issue because based on the email, never once did my colleague update the customer about the actual shipment arrival date, the latest email that the client send to my colleague is this...

... and his response to that was this...

... he knows it takes 5 to 6 months for the items to be delivered, he knows the chairs won't reach in April, right now the customer is asking if the chairs can arrive sooner, isn't this the perfect time to manage the client's expectation and advise him that April is not possible, much less anytime earlier than that?

Well, he didn't, because he is that irresponsible. 

So I then told him a second time to get all this sorted out because the ETA he has shared with the customer is clearly impossible, and then he replies...

"If the item gets delayed, just tell them I had miscalculated." 

.... and then what? 

You think the customer will accept that and move on? Fuck no! He will take his frustration out on the person who is giving him that information, which will be me.  

I have already highlighted this issue to you and you are now aware that you have miscalculated, so speak up and actually clear up this mess before it gets handed over me!  I had to essentially guilt trip him about this whole shit before he finally dropped the customer a text, and this idiot just told the customer that there will "likely be a shipping delay".

When I told my Manager about this issue she got frustrated as well. 

You are already leaving the company, just tell the customer straight up that you had miscalculated, be the bearer of bad news, let them be frustrated at you, get fucked upside down by them because it's your mistake. You have no fucking reason to have to save face for yourself by lying to them and telling them that there will "likely" be a shipping delay because you are giving them hope that the delay might not happen and that the items will still arrive in April. 

A few days after my colleague send him that message, the customer emails me and ask if he can get his chairs delivered in March.

Like are you two idiots (my colleague and his client) sharing the same fucking braincell? Literally just told you to expect a delay, and you email back asking if it can be delivered earlier! 

I had to send a screenshot of the WhatsApp message my colleague had forwarded to me, and told the client that he has been made aware of the delay, so he should only be expecting his chair in late May as per the message, the client then replies and request for temporary chairs to be loaned to him due to the delay and my Manager stepped in to reply on my behalf because I was actually on reservist during this fiasco.  She told him that the chairs will reach early May after she checked with the Purchasing team, and then that was pretty much the end of the exchange. 

I had sort of tucked this whole issue at the back of my mind since then but the reason why I am typing this out right now is because the customer emailed in today asking if his chairs can be collected as per what my idiot colleague had promised him before he made the purchase, which is in April, but this time, instead of end April, he is asking if he can collect it by 14th April.

I honestly had no mood to reply to the email, I just screenshot it and send it to my Manager and told her that this idiot ex-colleague of ours really left us with a bunch of shit to clean up, which she can relate because my Manager also had to deal with one of that idiot ex-colleague orders.

For her case, he had essentially sold a very large dining table to the client without confirming if it could actually fit their condo lift, and it was only 2 months after the order had been placed did he finally decide to go down to the condo to measure with the delivery team, since the delivery team wasn't aware that this idiot had already sold the table and promised the customer if could fit, they advised him against the order, apparently he got really bossy and told them he had already ordered, then claims that it could fit because the lift measures exactly 2.55mm. 

The full length of the table is 2.5m so there is space, what he failed to take into account is that the table is not just going to go in straight, it has to go in at an angle, that means you will need a lot more than  a 2.55m clearance to fit the table in.

When the table arrived about a month after he left the company, the delivery team did eventually manage to get the table up, it took them hours because they had to unpack the table and then wrap it again with padding so it can barely fit the lift, they also ended up damaging the lift in the process and where was my idiot ex-colleague during this? In the comforts of his own home, none the wiser about the issue, just letting other people clean up the mess he created. The whole delivery itself also had it's own set of problems because of how difficult the customer is and this is just one of those sales that would have been better to have given up then continue because right now, my Manager is stressing the fuck out with all the touch up fees the company will have to potentially fork out for a lot of different issues that occurred during the delivery itself.

So this is how you should NOT leave a company because no one is going to have a good impression of you after that. What he has done is just extremely irresponsible and I hope he gets to experience a colleague who will do this to him one day, just so he can get a taste of his own medicine. I am glad that he is no longer working in the company because he hasn't really been contributing much aside from a few big sales every once in a while, but if all your big sales keep having all this issue, then sure, to Upper Management, you will look like an asset, but to everyone else under them who has to clean your shit up, you are nothing but a huge burden that is still leaving his mark 2 months after his resignation.