Communication Breakdown

“I need this building permit picked up today. 

It expires today and we don’t have a GC [general contractor] assigned who can get it.  Can you take care of it?”

That was the exercise that landed in my email box on Friday.

Now first off know that Fridays suck as a day for visiting jurisdictions.  Many aren’t even open on Fridays.  The good news was this one was open.

The second problem is people have a habit of disappearing on Fridays.  Taking vacations or just disappearing.  You know…they just aren’t reachable for some reason.

So here I am trying to round up a way to pull this permit so it doesn’t expire.

So I email my go-to guy who has a guy (doesn’t everyone have a guy?) who drives all over Northern California to pick up permits.  That’s his job.  And he does it well.

I’m feeling pretty good that this thing can happen.

So I get an email back.  Yes.  Can probably make it happen.  Just need the permit information.  I realize when I forwarded the email the building permit PDF wasn’t attached.  No problem.  Resent with the attachment.  All good.

And then it wasn’t. 

“Communication Breakdown…It’s Always The Same…” – Led Zeppelin

This jurisdiction doesn’t take credit cards.  Need a check.  Now in the old days that would have been a deal killer.  Because ordering a check means a week-long process (the corporate guys had a funny issue with local markets spending and not accounting for their petty cash fund very well and having to spend a boatload of time following up to get the receipts).

But it this case we’re better.  We have check writing ability in our market.  Yeah 🙂

So all I need is a…Oracle number. 

That beautiful, wonderful 7-digit accounting number that lets me charge stuff to a project.

One problem…

I’ve never had to give anyone an Oracle number for this project.  It is a new project.  And my boss is the one who does the finances for the program.  And given that it is a program management project where we’re not doing the day to day site acquisition and construction work directly, we don’t cut many (at this point any) checks.  And the other expenses are all automatically coded to the right 7-digit Oracle number automatically behind the scenes.  I don’t see them.

Thus my quandary.

Now normally I’d ask my boss right?  Logical question since he does the the PO’s and invoicing.  He, or his accounting staff, would have that right at their fingertips.  Easy, peasy.

Another problem.  He’s in the hospital.

Not good.

How about my boss’s boss.  He should know it too.

…

…

He’s in the hospital too.

…I hope this isn’t something I can catch.  Maybe wireless isn’t a good line of work…

Not a big deal.  This is a big company with lots of people.  Just ask, right?

So I start with my local project controls person from my last project.  She’ll know, right?  I call her.

No answer.  Voicemail.

Who else?

I try the guy who codes our expense checks.  But he does what he’s always done.  And it is automatically coded so he doesn’t have the number either.

So I email a guy on the same program but in another region (found him on an email my boss sent).

No answer to my phone call but after I email him he doesn’t know but forwards to someone he thinks might know.

So I call my friend in the Seattle market who I worked with up there and asked her.  She did all the data stuff so thought she might have a hack to find the info.  Nope.  She only does the data side and doesn’t know how to track that bugger down.  But she gives me her accounting guru and says she probably has a way to find out.

So I call her.  Voicemail.  Nothing.

So I call another friend at the company who works in the Seattle market.  I reach him.  Perfect.  Only problem.  He’s in Cabo on vacation.  He’s got a drink in his hand on the beach…he’s got the right idea…but he doesn’t know either.  Darn.

So I think.  There was a guy who set things up nationally initially.  He was a data guy.  Let’s call him.

Get him on the phone.  Awesome.  Only problem.  He was laid off two weeks prior due to the site count reduction on the program.  And he doesn’t know anyway.  But if I know of a job opening, he’s open to referrals.

Okay.  Starting to run out of go-to people to run this down.

Then it happens.

Ding, ding, ding.

I get an email back from one of my guy’s guys.  The winning golden ticket.  The 7-digit Oracle number.

It has only taken half a day to track down.  But I’ve got it.  I send it to the guy who will have the permit picked up.

He’s off and running.

But…

He calls the jurisdiction and finds out…

It has already been picked up.

WHAT??? (or insert appropriate expletive)

When this whole thing started there was a GC who we’d been talking to about picking up this permit.  They said since the project hadn’t been bid out yet they weren’t willing to pick up our BP without having the award of work.

So we’d moved on to other options.

But in the meantime they thought, “We can’t let this expire and have to have the permit started from scratch.  That would suck.  We’re a good company who cares.  We should just pick it up anyway and see where things head with this project.  We should help them out.”

Good thought process.

Only problem.

They didn’t tell anyone they were doing it.

Communication breakdown.

…and as all those in wireless telecom know.  We suck at communicating.