Seriously, you don't call, you don't text, and you don't email to let me know you have assigned me a shop. But then you send me an "overdue" email two days AFTER the report is due??!!!??!?!?!?

And this company DOES send me call me on the phone, does send me text messages, and does email me! They email shop assignments and shop reminders and shop is almost due notices and shop was due a few hours ago, where is it??

And then...I had a phone conversation with a scheduler and said I might be able to do a shop for her, but the only date I could it was xx (which was PAST her deadline, but she said she would see if she could get an extension.) I said ok, be sure to email me the shop assignment and guidelines. (which they normally do anyways.) She replied with an ok, I will give it to you and send you an email after it's been assigned. The shop was VERY nicely bounced.

I check email for a few days. Nothing. The company has multiple platforms that they assign jobs from. I check those. Nothing. I hear nothing back from the scheduler in any format. There's nothing assigned to me on any of the websites. Ok, she couldn't extend the deadline. No biggie...

And then...FOUR weeks later, I receive an overdue notice stating my report was two days past due! What report?? What assignment?? I email back the anonymous sender of the email and say I had no idea that I had a shop assigned, obviously did not complete the shop I knew nothing about, and IF I hear something back that day, I would do the shop the following day. But I HAD to hear something back - a phone call, a text, or an email - something.

Nothing. I hear nothing back from the scheduler in any format. Ok, she didn't reassign the shop to me.

Fast forward four days and I get a two day past due email. Seriously??? How was I suppose to know I had a shop when there is NO notice from the company and I most certainly did NOT self assign it???

Argh. Sometimes things don't work out.

*********

Dear Schedulers,

I really appreciate reminder emails about shops!

I love it when you call me and talk to me (or to my voicemail) and ask me to help you out.

Texting? Not my favorite, but hey, I bought a text messaging package so we could communicate this way too.

Reading minds? That only works on my kids and close friends.

Help me out and communicate in a format I can understand, and I will help you out and shop that location that no one else will take...

Sincerely,

The MS who will help you out

MAYBE they did email you and it went to your spam folder??

Nope. I have my filters set up that emails from companies go into their labeled folder and the folder shows up on my screen to alert me of a new email. I check email several times a day. When the first overdue email showed up in that companies folder, I did a search through my archives to see if I might have missed an email. (I save the emails from companies.) Nope.

An email from a "new/not saved" email address will be delivered to my inbox.

I check my spam folder daily too. Stuff that has been reported as spam to email administrators goes there.

This was from a scheduler I had worked with before. It started as an email plea for help...so she was definitely a saved email address and the filter was working correctly when she sent out her plea...and we had talked over the phone.

I dunno what happened in the big picture, but I do know that the normal things that happen when a shop is assigned didn't happen.

And I couldn't read her mind. And now she's not talking to me at all (via email).

I was recently randomly assigned a shop, as well, but I never talked to a scheduler or self-assigned. I got a voice mail from one, asking if I wanted the assignment, which I did not, so didn't respond. I wasn't doing any assignments for that company anymore, but hadn't deactivated or anything. I just went to their site and cancelled the assignment, stating I never accepted the shop. I got a reply that they removed it, and asked how that could have happened. Had to email twice, and finally got: "I don't know, but it's cancelled." They sure can tell how it was assigned, and by whom, so they were dishonest with me. I will not work for them again.

What company was this LGRM?

I have had a company do this to me in the past - assign shops without communicating to me in any form. I would find out when I would check the website to see if there was anything I would like to apply for. I stopped working for this company when the manager/scheduler didn't seem to care that she was scheduling me for a day of shops that were at opposite ends of the STATE in a DIFFERENT state that I lived in! Nope, gas money, hotels, food, or bonuses were not included. It was physically impossible for me to time wise do the majority of the shops. The drive time alone, driving across the state, was not physically possible to complete in an eight hour day. (The company lost the contract. I am sure that I was not the only person they were doing this to. Please remember, I didn't live in that state and I had not applied for the shops she kept assigning me. She would do this at the end of the month/her deadline and it would be all the shops not filled to date.)

Sometimes, the schedulers do not look at a map of where you are, or where the shops are in relation to you.

Semi-update - I just found another desperate plea in my company folder begging for someone to take the shop. So maybe the scheduler is talking to me again?? This time, no bonus.

Just as there are unscrupulous shoppers, I would suspect that there may be at least one unscrupulous scheduler. In this case, could the scheduler be assigning shops without shopper consent at the last minute in order to get his/her bonus for scheduling all his /her shops, and/or in order to deflect blame for not getting all of his/her shops done from himself/herself to the shoppers who "flake" on the shops they were unknowingly assigned?

elcarev68 - you said it very nicely. Yes, there could be unscrupulous schedulers (and editors too) that do what they need to, to look good and build their paycheck.

Someone may take the shop. Or maybe I will receive a phone call. Who knows?