No...i will not apolgize for you being an idiot (long and work related)

The BBQ Pit
1

So I get a submission in from an agent on 10/13 and the account expires on 11/1. I review said submission and look at the pretty little binder Mr. Agent sent me. I conclude that it is a submission of crap. There is no application. No payroll information. I can barely read the loss information. I can’t do anything with this.

Sigh. I shoot off a polite email to Mr. Agent and outline for him everything I need to quote the account for him. I gently remind him that I need around 60-90 lead time to pull something together and an 11/1 account is going to be tough to do anything on but I will try if he can get the data to me.

He responds and tells me that he is really busy and will try to get the data to me as soon as he can but could I go ahead and get started with what he sent me already? Ummmmm…No…If I send this to any of my markets they will laugh at me. They can’t do anything with this account without the info I have requested.

I again, politely, explain to Mr. Agent that I will need the data in order to proceed. He huffs and he puffs and he agrees to send it to me when he can. Okay. No problem. I put the account to the side of my desk.

Fast forward to this morning. I come in and have an email from Mr. Agent with all the data I asked for. Great. I now basically have 7 days in which to try and pull something together. Peachy.

I call a friend of mine at a company in TX and give him the basics, unofficially, and ask if he could possibly help me out. He says if I will overnight him the submission he can knock it out for me and he thinks it will actually come in lower than what they are paying now. Perfect.

Great! I call Mr. Agent and leave him a message telling him I think I can pull it off and that I have found a market to work with us.

I get a hapy voice mail from him later saying he is thrilled. He wants me to call him back and let him know which market and discuss how to proceed.

I am feeling quite good about myself and how I have managed to actually do something with this Submission O Crap so I call Mr. Agent back thinking he will heap mounds of praise on my dedication and hard work on his behalf.

He asks me what market I am using and I being to tell him. I haven’t gotten the complete company name out of my mouth and I hear…

“WHAT? Are you kidding me? This is SO inappropriate. I can’t BELIEVE this.”

I am naturally confused so I begin to ask Mr. Agent what the problem is.

He tells me that about 5 years ago he got screwed by this company and he refuses to work with them.

Okay, jackass…how would I know that? You never told me I had any restrictions on which market to use. You just told me to get it done.

I politely apologize and tell him that it’s okay…I won’t use that market but that I gotta say it isn’t looking good for any other markets that I have. Given the nature of his account and the short time frame I will probably not be in a position to help him.

Mr. Agent, while foaming at the mouth, tells me he wants the complete submission withdrawn and an apology letter to him from me that I would ever consider treating him and his account in such a manner.

What. The. Fuck.

You have got to be kidding me.

I took your shitty ass piece of cow manure submission and got a friend to say he would do it for you. I got a ballpark estimate of a LOWER amount than what you are paying right now. And because you had a bad experience that I knew nothing about FIVE FREAKING YEARS ago you actually think I’m going to send you an apology letter?

I tell Mr. Agent that the submission hasn’t been officially submitted to the company…that this was all done on a phone call. He says he doesn’t care. He can’t believe I would do this. Blah.Blah.Blah.Blah.

He is literally ranting and screaming at me. I take a deep breath and tell him that I will mail his submission binder back to him and I apologize if he feels I did not handle his account in the manner it should have been.

He then says, “But I want you to take it to another market. Surely you have somebody else you can take it to?”

I explain AGAIN that there isn’t a market out there that is going to take a long haul trucking risk and pull something together for him in 7 days.

“Long hauling trucking” he says, “What are you talking about? They only do short haul.”

I pull out the application he emailed to me and it clearly says this is a LONG HAUL TRUCKING risk.

I explain THIS to him and he says, “It most certainly is not. I don’t know where you got that from.”

Okay. Check please. I’m done.

I say, “Well, if your submission wasn’t lacking virtually every piece of data that I needed and if I had gotten it oh, maybe a month or so in advance I might have been able to help you out but I can’t take a risk like this and pull a quote from my ass by 11/1.”

Mr. Agent then says, “11/1? This is a 12/1 account. Where are you getting 11/1? I have a 30 day extension.”

OFF OF YOUR FUCKING INTRODUCTION LETTER YOU MORON! YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT ANY EXTENSION.

Your letter begins: Hope you can help me out with an account I have coming up 11/1.

Apology letter? It will be a cold day in hell and pigs will come shooting out of my anus before I send this fruitcake any apology letter. In fact, every account I see come across my desk from him from now on will go to the bottom of the pile.

How do some people actually run a business when they are this clueless?

2

This clueless? No no, you specifically said that clueless.

3

What do you do for a living?

4

Send him a flaming bag of poo as an apology.

5

I work with large insurance accounts…primarily setting up off shore captives and other alternative type plans for clients who want to take a large chunk of risk on themselves either in retentions or deductibles.

6

Gay poo?

7

“Yes, I’d like to completely misstate my entire purpose here, totally fabricate my timeline in the hopes that you’ll rush, and I’ll expect you to read my mind about companies I dislike dealing with. Oh, and when you complete the work to the specifications I’ve given, but not to the secret ones I have in my head, I’ll be outraged and demand an apology for your incompetence.”

8

“That’s OK, I budgeted for some goons to beat it out of you”

[/Dilbert]

9

This kind of crap is EXACTLY why I tell my clients I normally need 60-90 days lead time to put something together for them. When you wait until 20 days before your account expires then you become sloppy and you miss details (like what the fucking risk does and when they expire apparently…)

Why can’t I just win the lottery and go do charitable work all the time and escape this nightmare of a job?

10

Jesus, I knew insurance was expensive these days but I didn’t realize it required holding hostages…

11

Are you kidding, Otto? Hostages are the absolute best kind of insurance.

12

The funny thing is I read the title of this thread as “I will not apologize to you for being an idiot”. As I read the OP I thought “you’re being way to hard on yourself. He’s the idiot!”. I’m happy to see you already know that. :slight_smile:

13

Tell him you’ll happily provide that letter after he’s paid the bill your sending him for the time he’s wasted. By the way, don’t forget to add the following fees to his bill:

*Missing info- Crystal Ball fee

*Procrastinator- Using the Way-Back Machine fee

*Pound of flesh- Sheakespeare w/o a license fee

*Timing mistake- Calendar Shuffle fee

*Listening to your whiny-ass- ‘I’m not your Mommy’ fee

*Client Training - Agent, you don’t know how to do your job fee
Tell him its cash only & hope he loses your number.

14

I know helpful suggestions aren’t often listened to in the Pit, yet here’s another one from me.

The customer is insisting on a letter of apology? Fine. Give him one.

Apologize for your handling of his account, for acting on the incomplete information provided by the customer, for seeking to handle his business through a market that, without your knowledge, the customer didn’t like, and for attempting to put through a rush order with one week left in the customer’s account. Sincerely commit your company to correcting this mistake by never handling his business again without his providing complete information up front and without any follow up questions.

Then run it by your boss to make sure you won’t get shafted for it. Also make sure that the customer’s account does end on 11/1.

Your boss’s review is important here; if you parse that last sentence in my suggested apology, you essentially commit your company to declaring this bastard persona non grata, get lost bum, inflict your business on somebody else!

15

They don’t. They have people like us to essentially run their businesses for them. And yet, THEY get the big bonus and book deals, not us. Ain’t that some shit?