From: Drew Vogt
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Slay!!!!
Received December 13, 2023
No cap, that was the BEST corporatey holiday function I’ve ever been to! Zanksssss for being the best party planning buddy everr!!! Who knew tech nerds had rizz. Lots of us are meeting up for happy hour Friday. You should join us. Bet!
Stay classy,
Drew Vogt
Sales Representative
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From: Carrie Priestly
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Party Planning Savior
Received December 15, 2023
Paiggeeeeeeee!
Thank you for basically planning the holiday party all alone! So sorry I had totally forgotten about my PTO plans when I told HR I could join the planning committee with you and Drew. But I’m so glad we could rely on you! I’ve heard great things, though it sounds like there are well-defined areas for improvement. I’ll triple-check that my schedule aligns with the planning timelines next year to ensure all the hiccups are massaged out.
Best,
Carrie P.
Social Media Manager
P.S. your mac & cheese is famous! Please share the recipe immediately!
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From: Deborah Frick
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Potluck Recipe
Received December 18, 2023
Dear Paige,
Thank you for providing a dish for the holiday potluck. People have been asking that we share a compilation of recipes for the dishes that won the taste testing competition. You would think macaroni and cheese is pretty straightforward, but I guess people want a recipe to boil water these days. Just goes to show how young people don’t know how to cook anymore. I'm just glad no one has asked for Drew’s moonshine recipe. That was certainly a disaster I could've done without.
Anyway, if you could send in the recipe for your macaroni, I will compile it with mine and Kadisha’s and send it to the rest of the staff.
Sincerely,
Debbie Frick
Senior Accountant
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From: Angela Hankins
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Holiday Party Debrief
Received December 18, 2023
Paige,
Thank you for your help with planning the company holiday party. I understand that your intention was for the potluck to include homemade food items, though I think we’ve learned an important take-away that we’ll need to stress our alcohol-free workplace policy at next year’s event. Nevertheless, we value opportunities for a diverse group of employees to participate in planning events and gatherings for the company, which is why we will be recruiting an alternative group for the 2024 party planning committee.
Thank you again for your time. We appreciate your efforts to boost employee camaraderie. Excited to have you on the team!
Sincerely,
Angela Hankins
Human Resources Manager
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From: Gregory Chance
To: Paige Miller, Stacy Freeman, James Crockett, Hope Larson, Danny Richards, Jonathan Price
Subject: Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 2, 2024
Happy New Year Everyone,
With that God-awful party [and hangover] behind us, it’s back to business. I’d like to thank everyone for staying focused through what is typically a slow season. We’re using this time to take a deep dive into our strategic goals and set the trajectory for another successful year. I would like to take another look at our strategic goals as a group to ensure that we’re all pulling the cart in the same direction. To prepare, I’d like each of you to look over your action plans and identify some key areas that we can incorporate more team lifting throughout the organization, particularly with our new IT department in play.
Thank you for your vision and collaborative mindset!
Greg Chance
Chief Executive Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Automatic Reply: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 3, 2024
Thanks for your message. We look forward to meeting your product needs! I am currently out of the office for the holidays, and will return on January 17. If you need immediate assistance, please contact Drew Vogt.
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: James Crockett
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 3, 2024
Hi Paige,
Thank you for suggesting that we do a planning huddle. Personally, I think finance goals are pretty well defined as they stand, but I know how it is starting out in an executive role. I’d be happy to meet up to provide insights into planning processes and offer any tips I’ve picked up along the way from working with other IT departments. How about Tuesday?
Regards,
James Crockett
Chief Financial Officer
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From: Stacy Freeman
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 5, 2024
Thanks...dates?
S.
Stacy Freeman
Chief Marketing Officer
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From: Hope Larson
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 19, 2024
Hey Paige,
I just wanted to say thank you for the extra time you’ve been spending meeting with other departments to ensure IT’s goals are supporting the needs of the whole organization. It’s honestly a breath of fresh air to have a team member so committed to collaborative success. I can’t lie that I was skeptical after that diabolical holiday party, but it turns out that Greg made a good move bringing you on. I’m looking forward to working together this year. Let me know if there’s anything the product development team can do to support technology initiatives.
Kind regards,
Hope Larson
Chief Product Officer
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From: Jonathan Price
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received January 24, 2024
Page—
Thank you for sharing your notes from our strategic planning meeting. If I’d known some of your ideas heading into this, the meeting probably could’ve been an email. Bottom line is that several of your initiatives are clearly in the Operations wheelhouse. While I’m happy to take these items into consideration as we work through the goals, they ultimately would be housed under Operations. I’m not sure how you had planned to track and take credit for the work of employees not under your purview, so I’m glad we were able to catch this error before you showed it to Greg. Additionally, while ideas are always welcome, I appreciate your understanding of the departmental lines which are crucial to efficient business operation...just like mac & cheese was crucial to the holiday party! Keep it up 😊
Best,
Jonathan Price
Chief Operations Officer
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From: Gregory Chance
To: Paige Miller, Stacy Freeman, James Crockett, Hope Larson, Danny Richards, Jonathan Price
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received February 19, 2024
Thank you for your time at the strategy meeting today. Although I had hoped we could’ve made some more collaborative strides to sync up our efforts, particularly with the new technology focus afforded to us by Paige, I think we’re in a good enough spot to wrap this up. Please send final revisions to my assistant by noon tomorrow.
Greg Chance
Chief Executive Officer
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From: James Crockett
To: Gregory Chance
Cc: Paige Miller, Stacy Freeman, Hope Larson, Danny Richards, Jonathan Price
Subject: RE:Strategic Planning Initiative
Received February 19, 2024
Agreed! I see the missing opportunities as well. But thanks everyone for doing your best!
MORE in 24! Go team!
James Crockett
Chief Financial Officer
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From: Hope Larson
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Turnkey Client System Implementation
Received June 14, 2024
Hey Paige,
I am so impressed with the expedience and organization of this roll-out! Thank you so much for your measures to make the data migration as minimal effort as possible for everyone. This new system will be game-changing for the Product Development team. We can’t wait to start using the analytics across the whole product lifestyle to engineer improvements that will increase sales. Well done!! If this is just the start, I’m thrilled to see what’s next.
Kind regards,
Hope Larson
Chief Product Officer
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From: Stacy Freeman
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Turnkey Client System Implementation
Received June 20, 2024
P: Thanks for all the thought that went into this new software, but I just don’t have the time to learn one more thing. I mean, how much will this really impact marketing anyway? I can see sales or operations. Maybe just get with Danny and Jonathan for an exclusive rollout with them. Too much on my plate!
S.
Stacy Freeman
Chief Marketing Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Turnkey Client System Implementation
Received June 24, 2024
Paigey-P,
Clearly, you’ve put a lot of time into this, and I appreciate your initiative. However, my team really could’ve used a heads up on this before the email blast went out to the whole staff. While this may indeed be an IT strategic initiative, it actually impedes with Sales’ goals. There’s no way we’re going to meet our quota for the year if we have to take all this time to transition to a platform that doesn’t even track the key indicators we need! I’m sorry, but this just isn’t feasible for this year.
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Gregory Chance
To: Paige Miller
Subject: TCS Scale-Back
Received July 22, 2024
Paige,
I’ve been getting earfulls about the Turnkey Client System implementation process, and I’m getting the impression that you may have jumped the gun on this one. I know it was written into your strategic goals for the year, but the team was still caught off guard. It hasn’t been standard practice for the team to monitor other department’s goal progress, so they really could’ve benefitted from a little more communication. In the meantime, let’s scale back on implementation until we can warm everyone up to the idea a bit more.
Regardless of all that, your enthusiasm is noted and much appreciated. I knew I hired you for more than just your mac & cheese.
Greg Chance
Chief Executive Officer
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From: Jonathan Price
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:TCS Transition on Hold
Received August 1, 2024
Page—
Thank GOD and thank YOU! I mean, how complicated can a software be?? Between you and me, I would’ve been really surprised if Stacy had been able to pick this up. I appreciate the go-getter attitude, but smooth and steady wins the race around here.
Best,
Jonathan Price
Chief Operations Officer
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From: James Crockett
To: Danny Richards, Hope Larson
Cc: Paige Miller
Subject: Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received September 30, 2024
Thank you for submitting your end of quarter financial reports. I’m showing a gross incongruency between sales and production units. Danny, please coordinate with Hope to ensure you’re accurately reporting sales data for product orders. The last thing we need is massive overhead costs in inventory storage.
I’ve cc’d Paige as this sounds like a perfect moment for a technology solution to arrive on everyone’s desk. Thank Silicone Valley for miracles.
Regards,
James Crockett
Chief Financial Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Hope Larson, James Crockett
Cc: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received September 30, 2024
Woah, thank you for that catch, James! It would indeed be best practice for our product team to better correlate their efforts with our sales projections. Paige, let’s look at solutions together so we can avoid another Turnkey Client Systems diabolical.
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Hope Larson
To: Danny Richards
Cc: Paige Miller, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received September 30, 2024
Danny,
Thank you for agreeing that this is a major concern. Particularly considering that our unit production volume was, in fact, based on your provided sales projections. I might add that, had we already implemented Paige’s brilliant Turney Client System, this inconsistency would not have occurred, as we would’ve had real time data to both track and predict sales performance. For what it's worth, Paige and I predicted this kind of scenario in our strategic meeting in January—this being the very discussion that informed her selection of the interface. Perhaps if you had made that strategy meeting with her a priority instead of taking a two-week vacation during the planning timeframe, this problem would have been solved before it occurred.
Nevertheless, I echo my gratitude toward James for pointing out this error. I have already worked with Jonathan to order a stop production and will stand by for the most updated sales projection prior to resuming. In the meantime, Danny, thank you for aiming your future reports toward accuracy rather than ambition.
Kind regards,
Hope Larson
Chief Product Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Hope Larson
Cc: Paige Miller, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received September 30, 2024
Your expedient action is most appreciated, Hope. Though I might note that it would be much easier to reach the sales numbers I supply (which are based on the strategic goals for the quarter) if the product team was more agile in responding to our client requests. Better product = better sales.
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Hope Larson
To: Danny Richards
Cc: Paige Miller, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received September 30, 2024
We are quite happy to respond to the needs, questions, and requests of our potential customers and are incredibly grateful for any and all feedback that makes its way past the sales front into the product development team meetings (which is alarmingly very little).
Kind regards,
Hope Larson
Chief Product Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Paige Miller
Cc: Hope Larson, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received October 1, 2024
Thank you for piping up, Paige! Yes, we need a solution that we can start using right away. None of that migration timeline mess from the TCS. No time, too complicated. I think Hope would agree that we need something that works, and we need it now.
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Hope Larson
To: Danny Richards
Cc: Paige Miller, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received October 1, 2024
Thank you, Paige, for throwing out some potential solutions.
Danny, while your consideration is heartwarming, I, in fact, do NOT agree that a rushed, partial product release from IT will solve the Sales team’s lack of commitment to improved communication. Technology is wonderful, but not, in fact, miraculous.
Kind regards,
Hope Larson
Chief Product Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Hope Larson
Cc: Paige Miller, James Crockett
Subject: RE:Q3 Unit Count Alert
Received October 2, 2024
Hope: I appreciate your concern regarding the communication practices of our team. While I welcome feedback off-line, I kindly recommend that we focus on the problem at hand.
Paige: how long before we can get a new platform up and running?
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Gregory Chance
To: Paige Miller
Subject: Sales Management Platform
Received October 16, 2024
Paige,
Thank you for submitting a proposal for additional funds for a sales management platform. James and I agreed that the proposal was thorough and well managed. Nevertheless, as technology updates are funded from budgets across company departments, it is vital that IT solutions provide some benefit to the entire team. It would be an uneven distribution of resources to fund this platform for the sole use of the sales team.
Greg Chance
Chief Executive Officer
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From: Gregory Chance
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Sales Management Platform
Received October 18, 2024
I understand your frustrations and I am thrilled with your broad perspective and commitment to finding technology solutions to this ongoing issue. Unfortunately, it’s just a no go until we can implement a more comprehensive solution that benefits the whole organization.
Keep up the good work! We’re getting close.
Greg Chance
Chief Executive Officer
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From: Danny Richards
To: Paige Miller
Subject: RE:Sales Platform Proposal Denied
Received October 22, 2024
Thank you for trying. I’m confident that we can get a better technology strategy developed for next year though. I was very hopeful that, with the addition of your role, we might start getting more comprehensive and well-implemented technology in place to resolve these types of issues proactively. But I get it...takes some time to settle in. Always improving, right?
Cheers,
Danny Richards
Chief Sales Officer
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From: Angela Hankins
To: All Staff
Cc: Carrie Priestly, Drew Vogt, Deborah Frick
Subject: Holiday Time!
Received November 12, 2024
It’s beginning to look a lot like...the 2024 holiday party! To express our gratitude for another fantastic year of hard work, this year’s party planning committee, Carrie Priestly, Drew Vogt, and Debbie Frick, are excited to invite you to don your elf hats for another year of cheer.
I’d like to remind everyone about our alcohol-free workplace policy (attached). So while moonshine is decidedly OFF the menu, Paige’s famous bacon mac & cheese certainly is not. Yum!
RSVP to Debbie by November 30th. Ho, ho, ho, see you there! Thank you for all you do.
Sincerely,
Angela Hankins
Human Resources Manager
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From: Paige Miller
To: Gregory Chance
Cc: Angela Hankins
Subject: Thank You for the Experience
Sent November 12, 2024
Hi Greg,
Thank you for the past 18 months of serving on your leadership team. As you are aware, I took on this role with a great deal of enthusiasm to help you accomplish the goal you set before me. I truly believe (both then and now) in the power of technology to forge connections. And this position has been the learning experience of a lifetime as I’ve witnessed time and again the power of people to quarry out divisions.
It is with this great gratitude and respect that I submit my letter of resignation from the Chief Technology Officer position. I truly hope that my successor can overcome the substantial obstacles to achieving your vision of a more collaborative and positive team environment.
Best wishes,
Paige Miller
P.S. for the official record: last year’s drunken holiday party was NOT my fault. And it’s carbonara, NOT mac & cheese!
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5 comments
Hi! I had so much fun reading this story. Loved the corporate jargon, the passive aggressive comments, and the endless email chains. Framing thank-you notes as a stuffed inbox was a clever idea. By the end of it, I was cheering for Hope and Paige and getting more and more annoyed with every "cheers" from Danny. I liked how the story ended with an email from Paige, since we don't get to hear from her perspective in the other emails. I will say it was a little difficult for me to differentiate between all the characters at the beginning. I not...
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Hey Maria! Thank you so much for reading my story so thoughtfully and giving such helpful insights! It's so great to hear what people are thinking as they read my content, so this is much appreciated.
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I love the progression of the emails as well as the personality of the people in such brief snippets. I especially like the fact that the COO can't spell her name right even though it is right there in the header of the email. You managed to capture the personality of this workplace in way that highlights all of the problems and relationship dynamics of this company. Keep up the good work. I wish you all the best in your writing endeavors.
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Glad you perused over! Thanks for the read and impressions. So cool to hear what it makes people think. We all have that one coworker, right 😇
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We do! It wasn't much different in education. I'm glad I'm retired.
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