How much prioritizing does it take to know not to ignore an email from your boss?
We have a “Tim” in our office too. He doesn’t do what his direct boss - or the boss above his boss - tells him to do all summer…and then…
Wait for it…
Instead of the boss’ boss telling him get off his sorry excuse of an ass and get the damn work done - he (the boss) tries to push it onto other people in the office (read me) to get done ASAP!!! Like hell, I say. Only I say it nicely. With a smile.
Is what the OP an Ginger did considered legitimate rape?
From a customer perspective, if I had called back the third time, it would only have been to waste your sales people time before going with the other company. I would not have gone with your company even for a lower price, because I would not believe I would receive any follow up service in a timely manner.
Either your product or Ginger is absolutely amazing.
Shucks, the simplest explanation is that the other company has their own Tim – who, by never checking his e-mail, prompted an increasingly-desperate Barry to loudly pretend he’d gotten a great offer – such that Skald’s crew managed, by default, to beat a hypothetical pitch that hadn’t actually been made. 
Could two companies really be that unconcerned about new business in this economy?
No, I will not accept your argument. Ginger is amazing.
Is Tim a better farmer than hunter? Maybe it is time to separate the sales roles a bit between account prospecting / closing and account management.
It’s Ginger. I’m lucky that she has kids and thus prefers the more reasonable hours of an inside sales rep to those of a field rep or manager.
You should have mercy on him and trim his territory a little. He needs less to do.
This OP subject reminds me of a Tim here in our office. He was technically good at his job (supporting a large software system) but personally he was abrasive and obnoxious. One time he spent 15-20 minutes complaining bitterly to my boss Jay about the guy he worked for, and then had the brazen balls to ask Jay if he could transfer to our team.
Not until after Hell freezes thrice over hip deep on a tall giraffe, guy…
Tim is too busy doing what? to read his emails? I would spend a little time finding out what Tim is kept busy doing.
If one of my staff did not contact a customer that I specifically told them to contact then I would go through that fucker for a shortcut, yet my impression of the OP is that he didn’t even get a slap on the wrist?
I guess I live in a simpler world.
Your impression was wrong. I don’t fire people for one stupid mistake, though. And if Tim were not generally a producer, we’d have had a much rougher conversation.
Oh, I don’t mean fire him, just chew his bollocks off :D.
Ginger deserves a raise.
Stupid is a good description but it was not, under any definition, a mistake. He ignored your directives. He ignored his e-mail. He ignored the customer three times. A “mistake” is copying the guy’s number down wrong and having no way to contact him. This wasn’t a mistake. This was willful insubordination.
What you choose to do about it is entirely up to you, though.
Oh yes, this. If he’s genuinely overburdened, you MUST help him out by making him more effective in a smaller area, rather than doing poorly over a larger one.
If he’s being a jerk-off, then he needs his sails trimmed in several areas, but this would be a start.
I agree that Tim was being insubordinate; I just disagree with the narrow meaning (and connotation) you give to the word mistake. That is, mistakes aren’t necessarily accidental or even honest; moreover, even an honest mistake can be a firing offense. This was more a writing-up, loss-of-trust, gonna-be-watched-more-carefully-henceforth-&-not-given-special assignments offense.