Re: In a previous life
I now work industrial service rather than IT. For a few months I was sat at the Spare Parts sales desk while I was on light duty status (recovering from an injury). When I was told that I had a budget to meet, my first thought was "How can that be? I have no control over how many parts a customer might need and no say regarding the prices". And my job didn't involve calling up customers and flogging parts; I was essentially just an order clerk.
Whatever. Not like I was going to make a career out of parts sales...
So about a month into that role, I get a Request For Quote from one of our biggest customers for a huge number of various widgets. I do the research, find the appropriate part numbers, pricing, shipping, etc.; and get the order. It took most of a week to get it all sorted, but blew away my budget for the month.
I proudly went to my temporary boss with the good news that I had exceeded my budget.
"That's not Spare Parts," quoth he. "That's Components".
"Huh? How can that be? I sold the same stuff last week (in much smaller quantities, to different customers), and it was Spare Parts then!"
"Once you exceed X number of dollars, the sale moves from the Spare Parts budget to the Components budget, regardless of what parts they are".
I asked "Well then, who's the Components salesperson? Next time this happens I'll let him spend *his* time on figuring this all out".
He just smiled and said, "Me. Thanks for helping out my bonus".
That's when I discovered that "bonus" is spelled "bone us" at that company!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
