The further adventures at ICE

Carol has power issues. If they're not her idea, then it's not a good idea.

Recently we've been having problems with our new website. Specifically people can't order products from it unless they have a username & password, they can't get a username or password without calling to talk to customer service, and they can't pick their own username or password. Nice, eh?

So, in order to sate the frustration of our customers, Carol comes up with this EXCELLENT idea to advertise, 'NEW! Secure shopping online!'

Now, tell me, what's the very first concept that crosses your mind when you see 'New, secure shopping online!" It's probably either:
A.) Whew, they have secure shopping--now I can shop there
B.) What do you mean NEW secure shopping? Was it not secure before? Did someone steal my private information??? ACK!!!!

Right. So, my manager and I thought that particular slogan was very negative so instead of ignoring Carol's request, we adjusted it slightly to read: Improved secure shopping. A little better, but still not great.

After working up the advertisement, I gave Carol a draft. She wasn't happy with the ad.
"I don't like this 'Improved Secure Shopping' ad, but I guess we need it. It makes me think that we were insecure before--that we might have had hacker problems and stolen accounts."

I nod, biting my cheek. It was her idea to highlight it and now she wants to get rid of it. Not only that, but now she's making the point that it was MY idea to highlight the secure shopping and I was wrong to even consider making the ad.

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Since May, my department has been trying to get some literature organizers (they look like little mail cubbies) so that we stop trying to break our necks tripping over boxes in the office. These would be the very same organizers that Debbie & Carol were worried about us crawling on the ground to get into. Not only are the boxes a fire hazard, but we're going to end up hurting ourselves one of these days.

So, Debbie finally consents to ordering them in September--or at least she said she ordered them. Then we get an email notice that our literature organizer (we ordered two, now she's acting like we're only getting one) isn't coming until November 11th--right smack dab in the middle of super-busy-as-hell season.

I email Debbie and pointedly ask, so as long as we're not getting these things until November, I want to make sure we're getting two--not one. She's either ignoring me or actually doesn't remember if she ordered two or one.

My manager investigates why it's taking so long to get some shelving when we could have EASILY just drove 10 minutes to Office Depot and bought the things ourselves back in MAY. Turns out, they're thinking about reorganizing the locations of all the offices next year. Carol didn't want to buy the organizers if we're moving offices. My manager made it a point that we REALLY REALLY need them. Carol eventually consents.

Now my problem is, Debbie WAS lying about ordering the organizers. And we work on a ONE-STORY building. The office we're moving to is all of 10 yards away. It's not like we couldn't schelp the organizers down to our new office. I'm sure we'd need them there just as much as we needed them in our current office.