SE= solutions engineer/ sales engineer
Went to ask SE for advice on a deal. He asked if I knew my predecessor. Irrelevant I thought but said yes. He spent the next 10 minutes talking about how my predecessor bought him a really fine bottle of bourbon when he helped my predecessor to close a deal. No relevant help for my deal and went to find a different SE.
Asked arrogant SE later to help with the same customer where he closed the deal and he said ask product, didn't give me names and didn't join the call or introduce me to anyone or detail down what he knew about the customer. I even asked for a handover email. Product and me had to do it from scratch and customer kept asking where's SE X, why couldn't he join, has something happened...
Another time โ I went to where he sits, asked for help. He said he's busy and ignored me and then was caught chatting with coworkers. His manager was like hey look they've been waiting for a bit now, could you please come down and help. I was pissed.
Then I was talking about 3 different customers that all have potential for a new product Z. I said yes look the first one I have low confidence in but the second could be a gold mine. SE completely ignored me and started talking about how low maturity my first customer had and how he had so and so many customers with someone else and they're doing it right and how it's so good and what he did. After a few minutes, I was like yeah so you talked about first customer and I was talking about the goldmine possibility. He was like oh okay thought they were the same.
He recently went on a business trip to another country and he was so full of criticism about the food and customs. Which adds to my fume because I already dislike him.
And now it seems this dude's getting promoted??
Rest of the SEs are sweet wonderful angels except for this wolf in sheep's clothing and with red horns. And I know I need SE to close deals... Just not him thank you very much.
Anyone dealt with difficult SEs? Have I just been lucky I've not encountered this before?
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