Sounds like you were a “supervisor” in the same way the door greeter at your local MegaloMart wears a pin proudly proclaiming, “I’m an owner!”
It isn’t always this bad – I still do customer-facing tech support – but it’s the huge companies, where saving half a penny on every customer actually makes you real money, that are the problem.
Ultimately, if a company really wants to help its customers, they will. The problem is that megacorps care more about making short term gains this quarter than they do about long term customer retention. It leads to absurd situations.
Of course, such huge companies really don’t care about their employees, either.
This happened shortly before I left, so I don’t know. I doubt it. Probably the client folks had forgotten about it, too; the client had over a hundred call centers with dozens of different providers, and were just as fucked up as we were, if not more.
The issue is that, with the volume of calls and the number of supervisory requests that are received, the real supervisors would be overwhelmed and not be able to do their jobs.
So the higher levels of support are empowered to act as supervisors in order to be able to manage the number of calls of this nature and to allow the real management to do their job of actually managing us.
Because honestly, the vast majority of “supervisor” requests are just because they want someone with more experience, or they want to complain about something. Neither of which require an actual supervisor.
That wasn’t my experience at D-Link. People who wanted a supervisor were usually well-versed in the “be-a-squeaky-wheel-so-you-can-get -the-grease” strategem.
'Course I wasn’t actually in the tech support path. I was RMA, where over-the-phone tech support has already failed to resolve the problem.
That’s one of the things I was talking about yesterday in a meeting.
In the first tier of support, I got a fair number of Just Plain Jerks who would be rude and offensive and rapidly get handed off to Tier 2. About once a month I’d get some kind of feedback saying “You said this guy was angry and obnoxious. He was really nice!”
Now in Tier 2, I regularly get calls where the Tier 1 agent tells me that the customer is rude, even swearing at them. Then I get them on the line and their disposition is a complete 180 from the way they were with the lower level agent.
Thus the same cycle as in my OP continues, where if they want to get to ever higher levels, they continue to be rude and offensive until they get there.
Yes, generally the more hoopla surrounding the existence of the “open door” policy, the less likely there is to actually be one in practice.
p.s. I know you don’t need the praise at this point, fluiddruid, but those were some masterstrokes of advice.
fluiddruid Very well put.
From your post:
There was a pit thread a while back in which a certain poster bitched exactly about this. When she was complaining that a policy didn’t make sense to her, the poor recepients of her anger would only restate the policy and the only possible explanation in her mind was that they didn’t know the answer. People pointed out the CYA factor, but she completely lacked understanding of the employees’ situation. This post is what would have been needed.
Damn, missed the edit window.
This should have been included.
I am really amazed that my call-centre works in almost the same way. I know from experience that call-centres were very different before. There must be some new call-centre handbook changing call-centres around the globe.
We have a ‘quality’ coach. This is practically word- for word what we were told when and call-centre changed everything 2 years ago - "We’re told that we’re the top, empowered to speak on behalf of our company and act as managers. That we are fully entitled to tell people that we are the end of the line and they will not be speaking to anyone else about thier issue. They tell us how to say NO.
Then they punish us if we dare to say NO. They ‘coach’ us on how we should have said Yes. But then if we say Yes too much, we have big meetings on how we’re supposed to say No. We’re made to sign papers saying that we’ll say No. Then we get talked to for saying No."
We have an admin team that can only be contacted by email. Customers ask to speak to them and they cannot. We communicate to the admin team by email only.
If finally we transfer a call to the complaints dept we end up getting told off for basically following the guidelines we have been given.
Would it be rude of me to say that i love being an engineer so that I don’t have to deal with any of that crap OR do manual labor?
Ooops, I guess I just did. :o
I currently work in a call center and while it is not anywhere near as ridiculous as the OP is suggesting there are a lot of similarities. Of late I have started to get a measure of peace by coming to terms with a few things. First of all is the fact that this is a billion plus dollar company. Meaning that we have a vast amount of resources at our disposal. What this means is that the gross inefficiency, inconsistency and all of the bullshit is 100% how the Powers that Be want things to be. Why should I care if things are done in a smarter or more efficient way as long as my checks keep clearing? The other is that when you work for a large company there is really nothing that you can do or not do to avoid getting in trouble or laid off. You are in the grip of a vast and capricious power that makes decisions that are not based on any logic. So let go of that fear. What will happen will happen.
Now I am settling in to comfortable mediocrity and have much lower blood pressure. Plus my wang grew a few inches.
This makes a very frustrating incident with a cellphone company a while back make much more sense.
They had this mysterious policy that resulted in nasty charges, but asking to see the policy and read it’s rules for myself wasn’t an option. I had to ask them. All I got was double talk. Things like getting a text offering something could save money, than going in to find out I wasn’t eligible. Another was trying to figure out the charges. They varied, even if my phone use didn’t.
Asking any specific questions got double talk, and contradictory answers. So I went in asking for documentation of their polices. Seemed like a reasonable request. I just wanted to know why charges and billing happened the way they did.
Long story short it turned into a feed back loop where the representative, then manager, kept restating they would answer any questions and I kept restating my request for where I could see their policies. Never came out and said they wouldn’t provide that. Since we were at an impass, and I didn’t have anything to worry about that that day, I figured I’d keep it up till I got the policy, or atleast a real answer. The employee eventually become angry (understandably, this cycle went on for a good 5-10 minutes on a friday. I can be like a bulldog, and it was payday for many) and asked why I wanted to try to weasel out of paying my bill. I inquired back about what kind of spineless whore he was working for thieves. Some people behind me turned around and left, and the manager, with a pleading look, said he couldn’t provide that info, it was against the rules.
Having finally gotten a real answer, and taking pitty on the manager, I apologized for the skirmish, and ask who would be authorized to provide that info. He told me to call some office.
However the office tried the same crap and hung up on me when I persisted. So I did a system reset on the phone, destroyed the contact bearing simcard (I wasn’t gonna trust some company too slimy to even share its rules with my contact’s data), and returned the phone. They demanded an early termination fee, I told them I’d be happy to provide that, just as soon as they provide their billing policies.
I learned a lot about company policy and management, or lack thereof, at my first job. It was a pattern that I was to see repeated at other companies later on. It definitely reinforced the idea that is wasn’t how competent you were, or how well you did your job - it was how well everyone, including the manager, liked you.
Without going into great detail, one day, on the way to work, my brakes failed. I managed to get the car to an auto parts store, using just the parking brake, and found they had the part I needed. I called my company to tell them of my situation, and that I would be a little late getting my car repaired. Since I drove 30 miles each way to work, and only had the one car, it was something that needed fixing, and at $2.05 an hour, I would do it myself.
I was told that they were sending a driver to pick me up and there was no way I could not be there just because my car broke down. Of course, I was on a time clock, so it wasn’t like I was going to get paid while not being there, but they insisted. I left my car in the parking lot as they picked me up and took me to work.
The next day the warehouse manager called the entire work staff of about 25 people into a room and explained how having a car break down was no excuse for being late or missing any work. He never mentioned me by name, but it was obvious to everyone who the meeting was directed at. Brake failure was not a viable excuse for being late, or any other auto related problems. You must find a way to be at work on time and punch in. If not, you would be fired.
OK. No written policy, but it was explained to us all in terse detail.
The next month, Rick, another warehouse drone, didn’t show up for work one day. Since I had to cover his work for him, I asked if he was sick or something. No, the manager told me, he had a flat tire and wouldn’t be in. A few weeks later, Rick didn’t come in because he locked himself out of his car. A month after that, he ran out of gas.
All these situations were accepted without a problem as a good excuse to miss an entire days work. Everybody knew Rick. He was so funny - always telling stories and jokes. Everybody liked Rick. He didn’t, however, seem to get much work done.
Oh, yea, he was also dating the managers daughter.
Around this same time, there was a guy named Tony who worked in the warehouse. One day, he didn’t show up for work. For eight days. Seems he was on a bender and was out drunk the whole time. Never called in. Then, one day, there he was at his old post, like nothing had happened. They took him back cause he was such a good guy. He did the same thing again a couple of months later, then again a few months after that.
My tentative inquiries into these situations was always met with denials, glares and excuses. These were different situations than mine was. The policy set forth in the meeting did not apply to these incidents.
I finally told my manager, I realized that was true, that the meeting really only applied to me.
Yea, that pissed him off, but I didn’t care by that time. I left there shortly and found a much better job.
These are just a few examples of how this company was run, and this happened all the time. In the three years I was there, I saw the warehouse staff turn over three times. A few years after I left the company, it was sold, then dismantled, then closed for good. A family company that was started by the patriarch after WWII was put out of business by his sons within a few years of the fathers passing.
Working there opened my eyes to the real world. That company was the perfect example of mismanagement. The good people were run off and the poor people were rewarded. Petty politics ran the place on a daily basis. The people who managed to hang around for long were the ones good at covering their ass and kissing the ass of others.
I actually look back fondly at my first job. Sometimes it was great fun, but it prepared me for the real world a little better, and by the time I left, I was better at playing the game.
A lot of companies do not seem to understand how much money it costs to go through employees like an assembly line. The ads, the hiring process, the interviewing, the training all has to be repeated with somebody new. It is pissing away money. If you hire somebody ,you should do your best to keep them . They were good enough to pass through your hiring process. Use them . Canning people should be far more rare than it is.
Alternately, if you’ve got that kind of turnover, you might want to revise your hiring process.
Me, I’m amazed at how many new hires at my workplace don’t seem to grasp the concept of coming to work when you’re scheduled. If your name is on the calendar, you come to work. If you can’t make it, you call BEFORE THE WORKDAY BEGINS to let your supervisors know that. If you miss work and don’t call in, don’t be surprised to find yourself unemployed.
Well I am assuming you have done some diligence in finding employees. That would be the hiring process. If they have done their job, then brooming employees over and over is very poor practice.
At least 40% of the people we lost from my training class were fired for absenteeism.
Generally had about the same rate in the Security business, where you’re relieving someone who can’t leave until you get there and is likely to be pretty pissed off that you are late. I once had a guy show up 20 minutes late on a night I had a critical appointment. When I stormed out the door with a dirty look and a simple “you’re late”, the man chased me across the parking lot throwing a fit and saying “You’re buggin’ about a couple of minutes?”. Yes, you stupid fuck, I’m “buggin” about you being 20 minutes late (for the third time in a month) when I need to be 20 miles away 10 minutes from the time you decided to show up.
It is simply amazing to watch people throw up their hands and act confused as to why it’s such a big deal that they show up to work on time. Or at all.
About 10 years or so ago, my sister was the Manager of a chain coffee shop. When she took over, she had a bunch of college students on the employee list. A fair number would show up when they’d show up - meaning there was always a fair chance they’d decide that they had better things to do than work - and a couple seemed to think that the schedule was completely optional and they could just show up and work an hour or two anytime they had nothing better to do.
But it is hard to weed out people for that when the last employer is unlikely to give you more information than their employment dates. (Which I’m not complaining about, having been on the wrong side of employer lies.)
I would have loved to have him as my relief when I worked security. I took my weekend on Wednesday and Thursday, so I worked over the weekend, on third shift. The guy that relieved me on 1st shift on Saturdays and Sundays only worked those shifts for the security company. Saturdays were not a problem, he would show up I would leave.
But since it was Saturday, he had to go out after he got off of work. He was late almost every Sunday morning, usually with a hangover. Well, except the ones when he didn’t show up at all. Then I got to call the boss, who did not appreciate getting called early on Sunday. I didn’t care how upset she got, since I wasn’t happy about still being at work 2 hours after I was supposed to be home in bed. She didn’t reprimand him, she didn’t fire him, she just put up with his absenteeism and tardiness. Other than that though, it wasn’t a bad job.
I worked at a company that did this kind of crap. There was no such thing as advancement or promotion, but boy, they handed out free T-shirts like candy; I worked there for about a year and a half and accumulated a whole drawerful of them. Rewards for a job well done were never in the form of a raise, or even a bonus, but with this weird, horrible, crappy candybar-style bribery.
On one particular project, my workaholic supervisor did a helluva job and earned, as her reward … a new iPhone.
Just the phone. (And the box.)
She was going through a divorce at the time and could barely afford to eat, let alone pay the setup costs and the (really high!) monthly service charges associated with her “reward.”
She wound up being forced to return it. I felt so bad for her.
<SoupNazi> No reward for you!! </SoupNazi>
We have twice yearly inspections. These are meant to insure that we’re conforming to corporate standards…about half of which are useless bullshit paperwork type stuff that we fake up a few nights before and the other half are legitimate things to check for. I always took it as a challenge to see if I could get a 100% on the inspections. Not because it mattered–no bonus, no raise, doesn’t reflect on my performance appraisal, etc.
This year, I was told by my (very cool) boss that new unofficial guidelines had come down saying that they’re looking at people who get 100% and seeing why they have time to get 100% or if the people doing inspections are playing favorites or whatever else. Given that, he said, no-one was going to end up with a 100% because he didn’t want to get a rectal exam from corporate.
So…what I’ve learned (and what I did) is that “Excellence breeds punishment” and I took the scoring sheet, figured out the tasks I hated doing, and started adding up the points until I got a 95% which is well into the “pass, but not outstanding” category (and left me enough elbow room in case I missed something else. (Their scoring is also hosed–you lose as many points for “not correctly filling out form Z73213-Q which no-one sees except during the inspection” as you do for “Not doing the basic part of your job”.)
Well done company–you’ve turned me from an employee who enjoyed meeting the stupid standards you set for the challenge of seeing if I could do it into one who’s ignoring a couple of things that I absolutely know the company wants me to do despite them being time-wasters, but…heh…you’re rewarding me for not doing them. 
Thanks guys!