Jennifer

Working on an IT project at my new client, I was in a 4-person meeting working through some design issues in having AX2012 control the creation of activities in Salesforce against documentation that was being scrubbed in a 3rd system.
One of the guys in the group literally pretended I wasn’t there. Every single sentence, every question, every suggestion I made (and when it comes to design discussions, I do not hesitate to voice my opinions and ideas) was completely ignored, as though it had never happened. It was awkward enough for the other guys to notice and give funny looks, though neither of them did anything. They would, occasionally, if they agreed with me, repeat what I had just said (literally), so that the AX expert would “hear” it. After 4 of these meetings, this expert realized I actually DID know what I was talking about, and would at least hear what I said in in person meetings.

However, with every question and every issue I raised for the next 1.5 YEARS on the project he would follow this pattern:
1. Ignore me.
2. Dismiss the issue out of hand as “not an issue”
I would then take the time 30-60 minutes to “prove” it was an issue
3. Acknowledge it was happening, but dismiss its importance
I would then take the time 3-5 hours usually, to “prove” it was a major issue with data to back me up.
4. Acknowledge it was an issue and important, and finally fix it. In less than 10 minutes.

He truly knew his stuff in AX, and everything BUT AX were my areas of expertise. But seriously? EVERY ISSUE he wasted up to 6 hours of my time in making me prove it. And I was wrong about it being a major issue perhaps 1 in 50 issues?

He did not act this way with any of the men on the project. Even brand new people who didn’t know what was going on.

Eventually the client hired a new person to handle the integration (which I was most heavily involved in) on the AX side. HOLY MACKEREL. He was willing to listen to me, meet with me and work with me! We made more progress together in 2.5 weeks than in the full year with this other guy.