I really don't like to blog about work stuff. Like to keep my personal and professional life completely separate in the blog-o-sphere, but I've lost my patience with a particular vendor that I have been working with and just need to vent.
One of the projects I'm driving is to build an internal website to help employees stay connected to our business. I'm no web guru, but I have a clear vision for what's needed and have been really prescriptive from the beginning on what I want the experience to be.
Since I don't have any web design skills, I hired a vendor to deliver my nirvana site. Started negotiating the contract in July and by August, work had begun with the intent to launch the site in mid-October. All the time in the world, right? Especially for a site that's just aggregating content.
Anyhow, I won't belabor, but they missed their deadline by FOUR weeks, and for no reason other than they are completely unprofessional, unresponsive, unskilled and incompetent. Time after time, I would provide precise feedback on things that needed to be changed, and time and time again, they'd get it wrong -- or in many cases just never get around to making the changes.
Just to give you an idea, here are my recent experiences with these morons.
Me: Q (the vendor project manager), did you get that org chart updated that Cam sent you?
Q: I just got it on Saturday (11/11), so we're working on it now.
Me: Hmm. Not to be petty, but Cam sent this to you on Nov 2 (attach the original email).
Q: Oh yeah, I was confused. He sent us edits on Saturday.
Whatever! I can't believe she outright lied to me and I had to call her on it.
I'm under a non-negotiable timeline now -- tomorrow. So I tell Q that she needs to bring her whole web team to my office today and we are going to sit in a room and go page by page, line by line until everything is how I want it. So come prepared....
Q shows up with dumbass David (a web developer). Web designer for the project is conspicously absent. Fan-f'ing-tastic. Dumbass David is the person I need to do all of the changes today. He walks in with his laptop, no powercord, no mouse.
What??!! Ok, I've set the expectation that we're in this room for the next 5 hours, so how long does your laptop have juice? 3 hours. Hmmm. Strike 1,103. Then Dumbass David can't get online -- wastes 35 minutes of battery life while on the phone with helpdesk in India. Finally gets online and needs a mouse for his laptop to work. Strike 1,108.
I was just floored. So incredibly unprofessional considering I have not hidden my incredible displeasure in their output. A colleague of mine saw all of this in action and sent me the following:
That web guy was a COMPLETE loser. Seriously…this is freaking [company name withheld], buddy. Get your shit together. I don’t know how you kept your patience. I would have lost it the second he walked in with no mouse, no power cord, and no internet connection. Moron.
I've been wenching for so long about my lame design vendor, I was so happy to be validated by someone else's observation of their utter lack of professionalism.
Supposed to ship this thing tomorrow, so I hope it all comes together. And then, I'm going to "Trump" them and gleefully tell them that "they're fired."
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I would outline exactly why you're firing them and cc: the president/owner. They will not be pleased and that's the best chance of their employees getting some pain over this whole thing. I'm not sure you can say anything more powerful than saying you work for X company and you're going to tell everyone you know that they SUCK. "I have given you many opportunities to meet my basic expectations but you have failed that with 100% accuracy. (and this is why) I have never had such a bad experience with a vendor. I will, regrettably, have to give my honest review of your company when other teams at (our company) ask who to use for our internal site, and with the inadequate service I have received, I will never use you again." But I know you can say it better, ms. PR. ;)
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