An ostensibly VoIP-related, but really about fucking morons rant, and for once the customer is not the moron here:
A customer called in yesterday because they were having problems switching their account between handsets (we call it hotelling). This is a fully supported feature. It is in fact so basic to the way our platform operates that I can’t find a way to disable it. There is no reason this shouldn’t work. The customer spoke to one of our techs for a while, doing some troubleshooting and testing and so on, and offered them a work-around. Then, instead of opening a ticket and sending it to Engineering because one of our platform’s core functionalities is broken, they . . . tell the customer to e-mail Provisioning (me).
Predictably enough, the customer doesn’t mention that they spoke to support or that hotelling is broken, they just ask me to ‘enable’ it. There’s some back and forth in which I indicate that it doesn’t need to be enabled, it should just work, customer insists that it doesn’t and then finally offers up the information I was missing from the previous paragraph.
I opened a ticket, put in as much information as I had and sent it to Engineering myself to see if there was something I was missing, and then I sent out this little gem:
Of course, now I’m the one in trouble, for not going through their boss (who in another shining example of our workplace dysfunctionality is also technically my boss although I de facto report to someone else), and for being ‘mean’. I had to point out that was the very polite version. My original draft read “Hey assholes. I’m not doing your work for you. Get your shit together and do all of your jobs, not just the parts that don’t involve anything other than talking.”
The icing on the cake is that apparently I’m responsible for training our support reps on the voice side of our business, and if they don’t know how to troubleshoot effectively it’s my problem. Sadly that doesn’t appear to apply if they’re just lazy. The second layer of icing is that our CEO/owner-guy is not a fan of process. He’s always saying “if you see something that needs to be done, just do it! Don’t bother getting other people involved.” Well, I saw a teaching moment, and took it.
I don’t like working at companies with that attitude - I don’t mind doing my job, but I don’t enjoy doing other people’s jobs. Helping out is one thing; doing someone else’s job for them because they don’t like doing that duty and no one forces them to do it is another (which is what that attitude always seems to boil down to).
This is management-speak for “I am a wanker. I have no intention of holding people accountable for their performance. I don’t want to hear about any problems with any of my employees that would make me have to have an uncomfortable conversation with anyone. I do not intend to fix any problems in my department. Leave me alone.”
Yup, that’s about the size of it. I wear a lot of other hats too, for training and documentation and some billing (which is a whole other rant), but setup and implementation is my main function.
Kolga, this also explains why I haven’t gotten a review yet this year. I was due for one in January, but apparently I wouldn’t be happy with the results so we’re just not having one. Because that’s a surefire way to fix performance issues! :rolleyes: No one’s been able to tell me what my ‘performance issues’ are either, aside from being over-worked and only having 24 hours in a day.
Are you a management-level employee? I can tell you that if any customer-facing worker in my call center were to address a blistering email to an entire department, their ass would be a puddle of flaming gravy. We have procedures for dealing with fuck-ups, and mass-emails aren’t a part of that procedure.
If you’re in management, then it’s slightly more excusable. Even so, you have to let negative feedback go through the gears of bureaucracy. If you don’t like this, you’re in the wrong line of work.
This isn’t getting any better any time soon. Our business climate, and our corporate culture in many industries, is to the point where being understaffed and overworked is essential to profitable operations. It’s no longer an emergency - it’s the new normal, built into the business plan.
The manager’s role in that situation is basically to enforce the status quo, and his own authority, however he can, because his authority is all that stands between profit and total collapse. The company isn’t going to give carrots, so the manager has to wave the stick and wave it often. Without a slave-driver in place, it all falls apart.
That email looks to me like part of the training. Why does anyone object to your telling them what they apparently don’t already know about their job, if you’re the one responsible for their training? You didn’t swear or call them names; you just gave them info they appeared to need.
My job involves telling other people when they are doing things the wrong way at times, as the equipment doesn’t work right and may possibly explode or catch on fire if it’s built wrong. They generally appreciate being told as they genuinely want to be known for high quality workmanship. Management where I work however has a completely different attitude to yours, they actually pay attention to who is doing what and try to get the best out of everyone, with the result that most of us like our jobs and try to do them properly.
I feel for you, sounds like you have a lousy boss.
I’m not, but I am. As mentioned, I’m responsible for training them. Their technical fuckups are on my head. I (evidently incorrectly) assumed that meant I could tell them when they fucked up processes as well, particularly ones that involve my department.
Normally I would completely agree with you. I came to my current company from a much larger and bureaucratic one; at my previous employer I would have slit my wrists before hitting a whole department with this email. At my current company, I’m constantly being reminded that “we’re all family here” and “this isn’t (bigger company)” when I get hung up on things like chain of command and process. I was also once told off for being ‘too professional’.
Our current engineer (who also worked with me at my previous employer) followed up my email with one of his own, which was arguably much harsher, but only sent to the support manager and the VP of technical services (my de jure boss). He then got a private conversation in which he was told he was being unreasonable and mean and, again, too hung up on process and “we’re not (bigger company)”.
The problem here is that the chain of command doesn’t matter (except when it does, and there’s no way to tell which situation is which), and process is non-existent or ignored. I have no problems with skipping a few steps when it speeds up resolution for customers and keeps them happy. On the other hand, no one except Engineer and I seem to grasp that not following process this time had the exact opposite effect.
And now, 24 hours later, I still don’t know which support rep talked to the customer so I can address the technical training issue of why they didn’t understand how the feature worked. No one is willing to own up to it. The cause of the problem was a bad account password, which basic (correct) troubleshooting would have revealed. :mad:
That’s it - that’s exactly the attitude with companies that say, “Just fix it.” You can’t all just do anything any time - people actually DO have jobs and responsibilities and accountabilities; if we don’t, it’s mass chaos and anarchy, and the lazy ones will never do anything.
You and Engineer are both wasting your technical expertise at this job. Sad, but it sounds true. If nobody is accountable for their fuck-ups, then they’ll fuck up more and more and more until they toe the firin’ line. Then they’ll stay juuuust above it.
They never will become any real competition for “(bigger company)” and will probably be bought out and eventually shut down by them. I speak as one who works for a company that has bought out and eventually shut down less competent competitors on a regular basis.
If only! No one’s willing to offer owner-guy what he thinks we’re worth. I live for us being bought out.
His april fool’s joke was an email saying that we had been bought out. Engineer and I were the only people in the office disappointed when it turned out to be not true.
I hate the fact that you’re right. What a way to motivate people…
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way. I honestly believe slave-driving actually accomplishes the opposite, and building people up will instead prevent collapse. Using the stick creates resentment and fear.
The problem is, and has been, no one in management listens to me-even when I was in management–I managed 15-20 people in a call center environment, and would simply put Post-Its on people’s monitors in the morning saying “Good job” when they accomplished their sales quota for the previous day. I inspired a lot of loyalty among my direct reports, but upper management at best ignored my example, and at worst, I reported under a manager who was blatently racist and sexist toward me.