I work in an IT consulting firm and my job is to liaise with clients and the development team. Any new development or change in the existing one is implemented only after 2 rounds of testing. One of our clients whom I interact is poor at communication and he feels comfortable calling me over phone and share his requirement. Although we are expected to suggest or develop anything based on requirements shared in mail communication (not mandatory yet suggested by our management) and not phone call, I still used to suggest him from time to time based on his requirements shared over call. I was doing this favor for a long time now, as e openly told me that he isn't very familiar with writing good emails.
Today, the favor what I did just blew up in my face. A solution which I suggested 2 months back had other implications in a different module and I just found that it was implemented without testing. Now there's only mails where I provided suggestions and there's no proof of his requirement. I had to cut a very sorry figure when this was noticed by my management. The best part is when he found out that what he implemented without testing has created problem, he pulled old mails and concluded that what I suggested was wrong. Only myself and that son of gun know what really happened.
Okay story is over. Coming to the lessons learnt.
- Be cut throat and selfish to save your ass and don't worry much about what people will think about it.
Saving your ass > empathize with others inefficiency or incapacity - I am MBA grad from a prestigious college for god's sake. I feel ashamed to be working with people who can't even comfortable composing a mail. Not just the client. Most of my coworkers too. I knew this for along time but this incident stuck me harder. This is a shitty job, way below my standards but pays good. I am gonna switch jobs and and keep growing while these asswipes rot in hell.
Be where you belong.