In the previous company I worked for, a so-called leader in the barrier protection technology, this happened at the end of every month. Which made it a recurrent nightmare for customer service, warehouse staff and sales people. But the best time was end of fiscal year (June in that nuthouse) where you would see promotions that put after XMAS sales to shame. The pattern was so well respected by the company that customer were holding from purchasing in that particular quarter as they would get a SWEET deal. It is a miracle sales were not offering the asses for grabs or giving out blowjobs while they were at it. This was also encouraged by the fact that results were measured in brute sales figures and not profitability. What it means for yours truly? Ball busting sales calling all the time to see if we have the order, to see if we have shipped the order, have we invoiced the order? Still remember the face of the marketing lady saying sales were low for my region when I told her this did not prevent me from sleeping at night since my salary was not linked to sales results. Did not help my career (as if) but sure resulted in her not coming around with useless information anymore.
The best bit was delaying issuing credit notes to help the results and when the anticipated shipment day for programmed orders on purposes only to credit then and invoice them again the following month (they claim they never did that, yeah, right..).
Anyway, new company, new circus, same madness in that period. The beauty resides in the fact that this is deemed unprofessional by sales director, because we invoice 60% of our turnover in the last 3 weeks of the quarter. We already gave all our feedback on that and nothing was done with it, so bottom line we do what we have to do since, again, we do not get commissions (but they don't seem to be getting this). Lovely episode where distribution manager came with 2 weeks to go and asked if we could ship out so many systems. Her jaw dropped when she was told her no can do as it took almost the same time to get them from the mothership in the U.S.A. Just like most management, fucking clueless when it comes to the practical side of things and timing. Yeah, we just sit 15 metres away from her office but we may as well be on the International Space Station. The only problem is that these people are mission control and we will eventually fail to launch correctly because of the bad decision making.
Anyway, madness at end of quarter displays the following symptoms in this company:
1)Approved is the most used word: any kind of deal that will bring in a purchase order, even if it is from one of Ghedafi's sons on the run, will be accepted and must be shipped ASAP. Whether we shall be paid for it eventually is an issue for Credit and Collection to sort when invoice is due.
2) Are we invoicing? Seriously, we get this question on a daily basis. I once said no because we were too busy figuring out the Rubik's cube someone had brought in. Got a look of disbelief as that was something we would do. So much for the vote of confidence.
3) Customer Service is the place to be: the number of visitors in our offices in the last 2 weeks increases tenfold so we are considering charging people for access. Now that they also put an electronic lock on the door of our office we might actually do that (the beauty of the lock is that early comers keep the door closed and actually get work done since most people do not have access rights).
4) EXPRESS!!!: in the last week all orders arrive next day as all goes with UPS Express service instead of standard (costs about 3 to 4 times more) since sale is recognized only if delivered. The UPS guys or any carrier for that matter love that part of the quarter as much as we hate it.
Bottom line end of quarter is a state of insanity with periodical recurrence during which nothing is learned from past experiences. Once it's over if you did a good job you nailed the budget before end of quarter. Here most of the time the company is chasing until the very last day to make it happen. This time we probably pushed ahead many sales for Q4 into Q3, basically postponing the inevitable.
Bottom line: I don't care as the magical moment will be lost on me as I will be home gift wrapping XMAS gifts and and indulging into a normal activity rather than this pointless frenzy. Hope you'll be doing the same!
Down with the corporate tyrant!
