Backstabber Earns Himself A Beating

During the past month I've been trying to locate enough equipment to build extra test stations for Backstabber. He's been a nuisance to deal with. Like I anticipated would happen, there are certain key pieces of gear I can't obtain without paying for them. Every other option has been ruled out at this time. I can't barter with other departments for the stuff simply because nobody has what I need. I even took the extreme step of going to repair groups in a couple of product divisions and researched model/serial numbers of the hard to find units. I could discern which areas might have some of this crap by looking at internal service records. That way I could go bug them about if they were using those instruments or if they had any spares. All the leads I came up with ended cold.

Meanwhile each week I sent in a report to Backstabber letting him know exactly where I was with his test rack builds and what I needed to get the job done. Repeatedly I made him aware of the fact that if he wanted his stations, he was going to have to make some decisions about spending money to purchase gear. Week after week I received no response from him. He made no effort to communicate with me at all. On a couple of occasions I brought this issue up with him in person, and he ducked me completely.

So get this. Today when I come in to work I start my daily routine by checking email and reading about any problems that came up since last night. The one thing that caught my eye right away was a message from Backstabber concerning those unfinished test racks. The email went something like this:

The reason why additional resources for the test area have not been made available is because Factory Peasant has failed to assemble them in a timely manner. As a result appropriate choices cannot be made to resolve impacted areas in forward flow testing. Factory Peasant needs to make more of an effort to follow through with his assigned tasks and meet critical deadlines.

I glanced upwards at the distribution list on Backstabber's email. The names of employees he CC'd contained every manager in our department chain all the way up to the top dog. This was potentially bad for me. Months ago something in the back of my mind told me I had better be careful dealing with this punk and of course I was right. I knew what must have happened here. Backstabber promised his superiors he'd take care of a big problem, didn't do so and it came back to bite him hard. He got busted. So I'm supposed to be the chump and take the hit. I think not. Clicking on the 'reply to all' button I began to write a response.

Backstabber,

For weeks I have gone far above and beyond what would normally be required to obtain enough necessary equipment to complete additional test stations in our production area. This has taken a considerable amount of my time and effort which further hampered Mini-Rel testing in the lab. I have made you aware that these stations cannot be finished unless you purchased critical items. Each week these requirements have been emailed to you, and you apparently decided to disregard them. You have completely ignored my continued requests for assistance in person and by email. Without necessary instruments the racks remained unfinished, there is only so much I can do without management support. I would like to remind you that I am not in a position to access procurement systems to order capital expensed equipment. That is your responsibility, your job. You have been given many options over a long period of time and for whatever reason, failed to take action. I will not be held responsible for your mistakes.

Before I finished up and clicked on send, I made sure to attach every single dated email I sent to Backstabber. Just as a precaution I had saved a copy of each one this whole time. The best part was I had set the priority to 'high' and flagged them for 'response required' which obviously I never got. Then I fired that bitch off knowing everybody in RF Sources management chain was going to read it by tomorrow morning. Heh. Backstabber was going to have a fun time explaining his way out of this shit. I can't wait to see him when I arrive here tomorrow afternoon. That's what he gets for fucking with me and for being a raging asshat.