I used to have problem with getting reports approved so I could distribute them.
I switched from asking for approvals to notifying that the report would be issued on a specific date. The reports generally got issued, because no-one told me not to; perhaps people who were reluctant to document an approval were often also reluctant to document a refusal. Maybe you can find a similar approach for the vendor issue.
For more important issues, I would not use email text; I would send a memo in a pdf as an attachment in the email. This approach tended to get more positive responses. This still baffles me.
Heh, I guess you missed the part where this is my last project before retiring and I don’t really give a rat’s ass about anyone’s reactions.
That said, escalating to peoples’ bosses would be the nuclear option and make my last 21 months here possibly quite dicey.
So, I was buttonholed by one of these principals today to talk about something else, and I brought up this topic (oh, so casually).
It turns out that, unbeknownst to me, the company is going through the process of identifying and simplifying workflows, which is a natural pre-cursor to the rest of my project. So when he got through describing what is going on, I said “so in the meantime, there’s not much I can do on this project, is there?” “No, afraid not.”
So that’s that. I’ve been sitting on my hands for 3 months, and now I get to sit some more. I should take up fucking knitting.
Roddy
It’s out of your hands, so enjoy it. Document it the best you can, create flow charts for the decision making process and make it easier to complete later either by you if things go unexpectedly quickly or the next poor person. They will appreciate it, even if no one else does.
