I snapped and was mean to one of the developers. Not in my head mean, or backchannel mean. In an-email-to-them mean way.
She'd been asking the same question over and over all morning--twice before I even logged in to start the work day. She's looking at a screenshot and asking me where does she type in the values she has. The obvious first stab, looking at the example she's mailing out, is everywhere. But she's not making that. She's not looking it up, either in the manual, or in the notes I've been asking her to find for more than a week in prep for this very moment. No, she's asking the business user, and the business systems analyst, how she should use the development end of the software. I tell her to back off the business user in a brief email, while I'm composing a longer one saying--use the info from that form I sent you in every field but *this*--you should have notes on that field--I've been asking you if you have notes, but you keep sidestepping the answer. If you don't have notes, contact customer support. I email her this message.
Ten minutes later, she asks me the same question.
I send her a shorter email, without screen shots, and say "everywhere but this field--please open a ticket about this field if your notes don't cover it."
Three minutes later she sends me back an email and says "But if I put it in this field as is, I get an error."
It's not 8:30 yet, but something snaps.
My email looks something like:
everywhere but this field
And then quotes from both my previous emails explaining my conclusion and the evidence leading to that.
We'll see if she's the sort of person that reports the sort of person I am. Her reply was clearly hurt, an "If I'm bothering you I won't bother you anymore..." To which I told her--"I apologise for snapping--it was both unprofessional and uncalled for. But I have never had this information, and I was never supposed to have had this information. I have been trying to get this information for you for over a week, but you have been blocking me at every turn. Please ask an expert for this information."
If I were in the office, now would be a great time to walk down the ten flights of stairs. I haven't designed a corresponding relaxation exercise for the home office yet, especially considering the inside pants.