Miscommunication sucks...

[TarekCoyote]

Dont you just hate, when you THINK your on the same page as someone else, but it isnt until its too late that you realize youve been in two totally separate worlds the whole time?

I got contacted by a co-worker to program a custom learning activity for legacy content (yay Flash 5), gave me the details, the script (which is a powerpoint presentation), and i even shot back ideas of how to accomplish the slides script i was looking at and he seemed cool with it.

This was last Thursday.
I worked on Friday, he had the day off (Good Friday), so i kept going.

Now heres Monday afternoon, the due date. He asks calmly "hows it going?" and i show him the almost complete LA (just needs some polish), and he goes "uh oh... dood... this is the wrong slide..."

Apparently, the slide i was SUPPOSED to be looking for in the script, was a new slide at the VERY bottom of the script PPT. Its 100% ENTIRELY different than what ive wasted 10 hours making. Why did i look at the wrong slide? Cause all he said was "its Slide 45" and on Slide 45 in the script was a learning activity with a blank template FLA in its directory...

Im staring at the FLA for the new LA, which thankfully has a new due date, but... i feel ZERO motivation to do it -.-;

i HATE days like this..

[Kaji]

Yikes dude, that is a bit of a downer. Well for a motivation boost, I know you can do it =3

[Unition]

At work we solve miscommunication issues by not communicating.

[Ember]

In my experience, online communication (especially IMs and IRC) are very prone to miscommunication, as both mediums strip out all emotional context from conversations.

My advice to you all is to save all important or stressful conversations for in person, or the phone at the very least. :)

[TarekCoyote]

It jsut simply doesn't happen in our office.

Were one floor, no cubicles, roughly 12 of us work there, and the environment is 'incredibly' quiet. The only noise you can ever hear is the tapping of the keyboards.

While i make it a point to physically talk to people if im confused over something, thats generally reserved only for "urgent" matters. If it needs a speedy reply, we use ICQ for interoffice communication, and if we dont care when a response comes back, we use Email.

In fact, verbal communication (face to face and phone) is actually highly discouraged in our office.
For the sole reason that nothing gets "documented" or "recorded". Were forced to have "History" turned on with our IMs, and people are required to be in the loop BCC and CC for Email communication inner office and out, for the such emergency that someone forgets something or someone else needs to headup a project someone else cant finish.

:\

[Ember]

Of course, DJCoyote.

What I was talking about was personal communication, not work communication.

Almost all jobs prefer email for the reasons you listed.

[Rascal Coyote]

Never be afraid to tell him he made a mistake. he told you slide 45 and tell him THAT IS slide #45. and that he should've double checked before telling you. i deal with this crap all the time at work.

[Tony Greyfox]

Been there a few times... once I had a deadline given to me that was a week later than the real press date, and nobody followed it up. Had to build a magazine in two days.

Sounds like you guys need some sort of review process to keep track of what's being done and by whom, to keep things sorted out.

[TarekCoyote]

Been there a few times... once I had a deadline given to me that was a week later than the real press date, and nobody followed it up. Had to build a magazine in two days.

Sounds like you guys need some sort of review process to keep track of what's being done and by whom, to keep things sorted out.

oh we do. Unfortunately for everyone involved, our process is incredibly well documented, solely consisting of information records and procedures on-the-fly. It costs us ALOT of time and effort, creating alot of confusion as to why we cant just do our job and be done with it.

In this case, someone just got sloppy (in this case, the person in Nashville HQ who wrote the script), detailed werent exacted, and unforutnately, coincidental circumstances also played a major role into my own ignorance that something may have been amiss.


So, in the end, i didn't get the project done, nor did i get another due project done, and now i must face the inevitable questions when i get to work in the morning: "So Kyle, what all did you get completed yesterday" with a response i can copy and paste as "well... due to an unfortunate mis-step in the communication between me and the course developer, i ended up spending a large majority of time, constructing the wrong learning activity."

Its days like tommorrow i dont look forward too, simply because it looks bad on my utilization reports lol

[Silvermink]

In my experience, online communication (especially IMs and IRC) are very prone to miscommunication, as both mediums strip out all emotional context from conversations.

My advice to you all is to save all important or stressful conversations for in person, or the phone at the very least. :)

Not sure if the OP was doing things virtually, but this is very good advice in general. I've had situations at work where I had emails being flung back and forth and people getting worked up, and it's nothing short of amazing how much someone picking up the phone will help.