Day Twenty

So the big deal today is the return of the douchebaggery of That Guy at the office in a big way.

He was adamant today about our company's "Open Door Policy." It's basically the whole "we want everyone to feel welcome" concept and our execution of it. Everyone's door is always open in case someone needs to come by and talk about something. And 99% of the time it makes perfect sense. But there are moments when the rule must be bent in order to accommodate practicality.

Today I was on a conference call with some people from California and one person from France. (Well, the guy calling form France was a Californian too, he just happened to be in France.)

This is one of those moments when the "open door policy" is impractical and stupid. I need to be uninterrupted in the whole call because it is taking up the time of some very important people and saying, "What was that," over and over again is downright rude. So I shut my door during the call.

Apparently at that very moment, That Guy desperately needed some information from me, and instead of calling, emailing, putting up smoke signals, or sending me a text message, he had to stop by. The door was shut and without knocking, he attempted to open it... But I had thought about that eventuality and had locked my door. So of course I had a bit of a chuckle in my office when I heard him run into what he thought would be an open door, but thought nothing of it.

After my call I had four voicemails... Three of them from That Guy (which I saw on my caller ID and ignored), none of which requested the information that he needed, but all asking about my door being locked. Then one from our H.R. department asking me to stop by. I am totally unafraid of them (unlike most people) and so of course I head right over.

The entire thing was basically; "Why would you violate a very clear policy about making others feel welcome?" But then followed by, "That Guy had a very important question that you're paid to know the answer to, and he had to wait to finish his work because of it."

I wanted to call him every foul word I could think of, but instead let it go. I just explained what had happened, the conference call, and that I was taking up the time of some very important people.

HR Lady: "OH... That's actually a really good reason. Sorry to drag you down here. Can you let him know why you had your door closed?"

Stormin: "Yeah, I'll get right on it."

Stormin to That Guy five minutes later: "Hey, next time you have a question that is more important than an international call, let me know..."

That Guy: "Well I was just trying to make sure that you were aware of the policy that we have open doors BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

I shut his door as I walked away from his office...