Derek Devicemanager

The VP of Sales just discovered Outlook's "Recall This Message" feature.

This is now my problem.

Friday afternoon, he accidentally sent a customer an internal email describing their negotiation team as "a room full of financially illiterate morons."

He immediately clicked Recall.

Then clicked it again.

Then again.

Apparently he thought repeatedly pressing Recall increased the chances of success.

By the time he called IT, he'd attempted to recall the same email 14 times.

The customer uses Gmail.

I explained that Outlook can't reach into someone's Gmail inbox and remove a message they've already received.

He asked if I could temporarily disable the customer's email server.

I asked whether he understood that the server belonged to another company.

He said he understood but this was "an exceptional business situation."

I suggested apologizing.

He said that would be admitting he'd written the email.

At 4:30, the customer replied.

"Thanks for the candid feedback. We've decided not to renew our contract."

$600,000 account.

Gone.

The VP forwarded me the response.

"Is there any way to recall THEIR email?"

I asked why.

"So Finance doesn't see it."

I told him that was not how email worked.

He said IT needed to be more solutions-oriented.

Monday, he requested a meeting with the CIO to discuss our lack of email recovery capabilities.

I prepared a slide.

EMAIL RECOVERY OPTIONS:

Recall: Unavailable.

Server intervention: Illegal.

Apologize: Available since approximately 200,000 BC.

He didn't appreciate the presentation.

The CIO did.

I'm now prohibited from attending Sales leadership meetings.

Our company spent $86,000 hiring consultants to eliminate timezone confusion.

Their recommendation:

Standardize every company meeting to UTC.

"One company. One clock."

I pointed out that employees still live in different countries.

They said I was resisting digital transformation.

So our first global all-hands was scheduled for 9:00 AM UTC.

London: 10 AM.

New York: 5 AM.

San Francisco: 2 AM.

Singapore: 5 PM.

The London team joined normally.

The New York team joined from their beds.

Nobody from California showed up except one engineer who was already awake because his newborn wouldn't sleep.

The CEO was furious.

"Why isn't everyone attending?"

I explained that it was 2 AM in San Francisco.

He said the calendar clearly said 9 AM.

I explained that UTC doesn't change when the sun comes up.

The consultants called an emergency meeting.

They said the problem wasn't time zones.

It was employee resistance to global alignment.

Their proposed solution was a mandatory training program on UTC awareness.

$24,000.

I suggested rotating meeting times so the same region didn't always get screwed.

They called that approach "operationally complex."

Then I scheduled our next consultation at 9:00 AM UTC.

The lead consultant declined.

He lives in San Francisco.

His response:

"Unfortunately, 2 AM falls outside our team's standard working hours."

I forwarded it to the CEO.

We now rotate meeting times.

The consultants submitted their final report recommending "regionally adaptive scheduling."

They billed us another $12,000.

We paid $98,000 to discover that the Earth rotates.

Our COO banned headphones in the office.

His reasoning:

"Headphones create invisible walls between employees."

He wanted more spontaneous collaboration.

IT has 34 employees who spend most of their day on calls.

I asked if headsets were exempt.

"No exceptions. We need to break down silos."

Fine.

Monday morning, we stopped using headphones.

At 9:15, the entire IT department was on speakerphone.

Three engineers troubleshooting different problems simultaneously.

Two people talking to Microsoft support.

Someone on hold with Dell.

A printer technician explaining warranty coverage at full volume.

By 10 AM, the office sounded like an airport terminal where every flight had been canceled.

The COO came over.

"Can you guys keep it down?"

I explained that we were collaborating without invisible walls.

He asked us to use the meeting rooms.

I told him there were four meeting rooms and 34 IT employees.

He suggested taking calls from home.

I asked if he was approving remote work.

"No."

He then suggested lowering our speaker volume.

I said we could, but customers wouldn't hear us.

Tuesday, HR organized a meeting to address the noise complaints.

The meeting was conducted over Teams.

Everyone joined from their desks.

Without headphones.

The feedback was spectacular.

Wednesday, the COO ordered himself a $380 pair of noise-canceling headphones.

I rejected the purchase.

Reason: Creates invisible walls.

The headphone ban was lifted 19 minutes later.

Apparently collaboration ends when leadership can hear it.

Our CEO hates the new company phone system.

Not because it drops calls.

Not because the audio quality is bad.

Because he can't slam the phone down when he's angry.

We migrated everyone to software-based calling last month.

You end a call by clicking a little red button.

He says it lacks authority.

"People need to KNOW when I'm ending a conversation."

I suggested saying goodbye.

He looked genuinely offended.

So I bought him a $79 USB telephone handset.

It connects to his laptop and works exactly like an old desk phone.

He loved it.

For three days.

Then he complained that slamming the handset onto the cradle didn't make enough noise.

Apparently the sound is an essential part of executive communication.

I recorded a heavy plastic telephone being slammed onto a desk.

Added it as a sound effect that plays just before his calls disconnect.

He tested it.

Called the CFO.

Argued about something.

SLAM.

He smiled like a child on Christmas morning.

By Friday, six other executives wanted the feature.

The VP of Sales requested a louder version.

HR asked if we could disable it during employee termination calls.

The CEO refused.

He says it's part of his leadership style.

We now have three different hang-up sounds available to senior management.

Standard.

Firm.

Executive.

I spent eight years studying computer science to develop a corporate telephone system that lets rich people hang up on each other more aggressively.

Sales insisted we connect our new visitor check-in system to Salesforce.

I explained that the system records EVERYONE who enters the building.

Sales said every visitor is a potential customer.

Fine.

Tuesday, a DoorDash driver checked in to deliver someone's lunch.

Salesforce automatically created a lead.

He'd delivered food here three times, so the system classified him as a returning prospect with high purchase intent.

A sales rep sent him a personalized proposal.

He replied:

"Bro I just deliver burritos."

The rep marked the response as a pricing objection.

Wednesday, the CEO's wife visited.

She checked in.

Salesforce created another lead.

Within six hours she'd received three promotional emails, a meeting invitation, and a LinkedIn connection request from our VP of Sales.

She called her husband.

He called me.

I explained the integration.

He demanded we remove his wife from the system.

Sales objected.

"She's a highly engaged prospect."

I asked what she was supposedly buying.

Nobody knew.

Last Friday, Sales presented its quarterly results.

NEW LEADS: +340%

PIPELINE GROWTH: +210%

The CEO congratulated everyone.

I checked the actual records.

Our top prospects include 47 delivery drivers, 18 job applicants, 6 maintenance workers, and a woman who is legally married to the CEO.

Sales has already forecast $2.4 million in revenue from them.

Yesterday a plumber opened one of our marketing emails.

He's now being pursued by three account executives.

Apparently fixing our toilets makes you an enterprise prospect.