Warning: I am about to vent.

I was scheduled to perform a shop last Monday. It was supposed to be performed AFTER 3pm. I ended up with a scheduling conflict due to my "regular" job so I contacted my scheduler who happens to work for a scheduling company, not the MSC directly. (And no, I am not going to name names.)

I explained the situation in an e-mail. I gave her the option of allowing me to perform the shop about an hour earlier that same day or rescheduling for another day. She e-mailed me back rather quickly that she got approval from the account manager that I could perform the shop AFTER 12pm on the originally scheduled date. Everybody was happy.

I literally ended up performing the shop only 15 minutes earlier than the original 3pm time slot. And again, I had pre-approval. I submitted the report on time.

Just a few minutes ago (on Sunday evening, almost a week later), I receive my evaluation review with a score of "9" with the following comments...

"Comments: Your report was nicely written and detailed; however, it has been accepted pending client approval. You were instructed to begin the visit after 3 PM. In the future, please remember to follow the required time parameters. Thanks."

I know a "9" is a good score but I still feel it is unjustifiable. How come schedulers and editors do not communicate with each other? They expect us to communicate with them which is exactly what I did. And they can't use the excuse that they do not work in the same office. Most of us shoppers are not even in the same time zone as many of the companies we work for.

Well, I could rant more but I am already feeling a bit better just putting this in writing for you guys to read. I hope I didn't bore you to death.

I commiserate.

What is worst is that when you make it clear you had permission, the never change the comment to reflect that THEY were in error.

Forward the e-mail to the scheduler. When I have had an issue, they are always able to fix it for me. If not e-mail the MSC management directly.

I've seen similar comments in other threads. Some have e-mailed the editor and copied the scheduler. Apparently, no editor wants an unhappy scheduler. Flash is really good at this stuff. She said she has sent rather firm e-mails to the schedulers and gets some changed/corrected/explained.

It's also possible the editor and scheduler aren't in the same time zone, either. A lot of them work from home, I've discovered.

I agree - it's so not fair! I'm not sure anyone in the process (including the client) is talking with anyone else involved in the process.

Since I started MSing a little over a month ago, I've had two shops rejected. I freely admit I hadn't followed the instructions and chalk it up to experience. I now get mostly 9s and a few 10s. I sure with we could compare names of editors - they know ours, for sure!

UPDATE: I sent my original e-mail communication from the scheduler to the editor. Long story short, here is the final response from the editor...


"I apologize, no one notified me of the approval to deviate from the required times. Thank you for letting me know. I will remove the notation from your feedback and will change your grade to a 10.

Thank you for being so understanding!"

Now you should name names Everyone screws up and everyone has had communication issues. It was said before, while most of the time there will be an acknowledgement it is rare for them to change the score. Everyone involved sounds like they were fantastic.

LisaSTL, you make me sound like I am in the mafia or something. Name names. I may have the French mad at me for my other posts and now the Italians. :-P

@shop2live: you need to go into the other thread about marketforce and annoy the Canadians, so you can complete the trifecta.

Techman01 made a funny. Yeah! I love it! :-D

I showed my husband that thread and he reminded me of the South Park movie and the song, "Blame Canada."

Oy.

Let's all open a Moosehead in their honor. Glug, glug, glug!

And once again, one of the threads that I started has gone off topic. At least we are not talking about huge, flying cockroaches this time. :-O

I'll stick with the French wine, Moosehead can be dangerous

Let's drink French wine while making Italian pizza with Canadian bacon! Then we can sing a different song, Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night!"

I love this thread. A good news story and lots of laughs, all rolled into one.
Thanks

If we change it to a song from Willie Nelson, we could tie in yet another thread.

Lisa4984 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let's drink French wine while making Italian pizza
> with Canadian bacon! Then we can sing a different
> song, Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night!"

So, being Canadian, I guess now I'll have to go and find that thread where we are supposed to be annoyed. lol

shoppinalong Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I commiserate.
>
> What is worst is that when you make it clear you
> had permission, the never change the comment to
> reflect that THEY were in error.

At least they didn't dock your pay! I've gotten that nonsense before. The first time it happened was the last time I worked for that company.