Not sure if the topic is an accurate description of what will be in the post, but it's all I can come up with. Anyway..

We had our annual "State of the Division" meeting a week ago. Discussing topics as cross-department communication, innovations/ideas, etc.

I asked the Divisional Manager a pretty simple question; why aren't customers being held responsible when they send us an un-readable order blank, and we (the compnay) have to spend $4 to DCF (Dealer Clarification Form, or something like that) the order and get a response from the store and the customer.

He said that as a business, before we can start asking customers for things like that, we need to get "all our ducks in a row" and "develop our business rules further".

So I asked a follow up question, regarding the same thing. Lets say a customer orders a $7.10 stamp (very common) - and the order blank is unreadable. Do I:

a) Do the order as best I can, and send it out completely wrong and cause the customer to be pissed off because we didn't ask them to clarify the information, and NOT cost the company money...

b) DCF the order, causing the company to LOSE money on the sale

c) Throw the order away and pretend we never saw it to begin with.

He said we should have a private meeting afterwards if I'm having questions about my work.

So after the Divisonal meeting, we had the 'private' meeting. My old department leader, my new department leader, my supervisor, the divisional manager, and me, sitting in a room, all of them staring at me.

I repeated my question and got the answer that I should be doing what's best for the company. If I can't tell what's what on an order, that's not my problem, and I should just do it as best I can.

Here's the problem I have with that. I don't like sending out things that are incorrect intentionally.

I see about 250 orders a day. I usually DCF 5-10 of those for various reasons. Incomplete information, unreadable information, conflicting information, etc.

Now, normally I would DCF anything that's wrong or would stop me from doing the order right.

But since we've been harped on so hard about the company not making a profit the last year, we're supposed to be looking for ways to "save" and "make less mistakes".

So I explain all that to them, giving several examples. Everyone except my supervisor (who is a really cool guy most of the time) is telling me to just do it wrong. It's the customers fault.

So again I asked why can't we just make the customer responsible for the cost of the DCF? It seems it would be easier to get our "ducks in a row" if the ducks in the pond weren't retarded.

I looked behind them and pointed to the several signs hanging in the room: "Watch Your Quality", "What Does the Customer Want? The order on time, done right", "Do it right the first time".

At that point I could see they were getting upset with me. They asked what my point was...

I simply said that if I was a customer and I half assed on the order blank, that you would send it back and tell me I need to fix it, and BILL me for that screw up, because, after all, it was my fault.

They said straight up that, that wasn't an option.

So I said ok, since you're forcing me to break my morals, by sending things out intentionally wrong, I'll be giving my two weeks notice and taking my two weeks of vacation starting monday. And I walked out of the room.

[Note: Up until this point I had done several good things for this company]

I guess my question to you all is: Is this normal for a business to act this way? Tell their employees to do it wrong? Is it wrong for me as an employee to cost the company money intentionally by dcf'ing a $7 order?

I'm just really confused by this.

Which do I follow? What my boss tells me or what my brain tells me is right?

If you were the customer, would you expect to have to pay if YOU screwed up?
If you were the business owner would you expect the customer to pay?

Or is this normal business practice and when I get another job, just expect this no matter where I go?

I'm a business owner though in service not in retail or manufacture.

Since we have a rather limited number of clients and usually with long term contracts it is 'easy' for us to bill the client if they cause us additional work by their own stupidity.

However it depends on several factors if I do bill extra work, these can range from common sense like "how important the client is" to "how is my mood today".

So let's say that I have a kick ass contract with a dude who gives let's say 60% of my revenue alone and I would be in trouble if I pissed him off then I will just forget about the extra legwork he gives me from time to time.



Which do I follow? What my boss tells me or what my brain tells me is right?


In my opinion your boss period. Even if he isn't right he is in charge.
However this does not exclude the possibility of leting the boss know that you disagree with a policy or decision but be informative and don't press the issue at all costs (which you did).


If you were the customer, would you expect to have to pay if YOU screwed up?


Depends, only if I'm informed ahead that screwing up will cost me money. In that case I can decide if I take my business somewhere else or not.

Depends.. depends on how well planned out the order form was.. i mean if its really easy of a form gto understand and fill out then its customers fault for being stupid but if its like tax forms then F the company that shit is hard.

Considering the fact that you got a "private" meeting and nobody really answered your question... my guess is that they don't want to piss off the customer, but YOU are going to be held responsible if the customer complains.

Unfortunately... yes... this is how many businesses work. Nobody wants to stand up and take the heat for the problems. I encountered this same issue regarding the network I was administrating. I kept trying to tell them that we were about to lose half of our RAID drives because of "dirty" power and I wanted line conditioning.

I sent e-mails... which I printed off and kept copies of. I sent memos.. which I kept copies of... and finally I was given a definitive and very adamant "SHUT UP". So I did.

The RAID cratered about two months later and we all were called into a meeting about it and chewed out one at a time until they got to me. I produced my copies of memos and e-mails. The meeting was over very quickly.

The bosses don't want to upset the customer, but you're supposed to be doing your best to help company profitablity.

Not knowing what kind of form you are using or what the product(s) is(are), it's difficult to visualize. Is it possible that a phone call could clear up some of those, saving everyone some time and money?

I came to a realization a few weeks ago that makes my job much less stressful.

Neither my company nor my manager nor his manger nor the director above him gives 1 shit whether I'm right or not. Nor do they give 1 shit about doing the right thing. Pointing out what is wrong, or pointing out that you are right will neither make them like you, appreciate your hard work, or further your career.

Go home at night, have a beer, play a bit of EQ or scrunch your feet in the grass out in your yard. Forget about it.

In the real world of business, you cannot charge a customer a fee for an order that you cannot decipher; they will not be customers very long with that business practice.

A more effective approach to this situation would be to develop a process of correcting such orders that would be more cost effective as well as more customer friendly. That would be more likely to impress the "suits" than an in-your-face approach such as you described.