The Dilbert Chronicles

Alright, I'm watching Discovery Channel's Most Evil and I can't stop myself from launching into a full blown bitch fit. They have this whole episode on Revenge and Murder. I am not as morbid as to commit cold-blooded murder BUT I have had it up to my neck with this woman and I really can't stop myself from trashing her in my blog.

I was hired as part of a means to continue a principle, and it's primarily of teaching newly-hired people. I remember when I first took this job, I prayed for it so hardly. I am happy and while I am not an expert in what I'm supposed to be doing, I am doing my darnedest best.

She however, hasn't been quite that productive.

She was hired as the manager. She will, soon, be my boss. And for the love of all that is holy and mighty, the boss of everyone. Tonight, after I took a much needed one-day hiatus from work, Miss Priss got a barrage of emails from all the clients' application owners, demanding better service.

Let me give you a brief background of how things work in our office. We're the IT help center for a global company, which means that we have to provide service for everything under the sun - telco, applications, PC software and hardware... you name it, we support it. Even the creation of the accounts for each employee of the said company. She has been with the company for quite some time now. She was even sent to the UK for further training. Coming back from the UK, she should have been ready to "better" the help center. But instead of doing so, she sort of changed the way things were being run. She tried to completely destroy the culture within, instead of assimilating the culture that the company already had. I would have to say, somehow, people were pretty excited about how she would "change" everything for the better. I just knew it was trouble from the very start.

It had been on crazy, reactive idea after another.

What ultimately makes her worthy of a bitch brew (trust me, I am drinking coffee and smoking as I write this blog entry), you ask? Well, let's see... Apart from the fact that she might not be thinking straight because she keeps linking our corporate IT help center to her previous companies which were end-consumer call centers, she keeps on trying to change the entire structure without understanding how it works. Companies on a molecular level are beings on its own. No matter how small it is, it won't exist as a single-celled organism. You need the mitochondria - the powerhouse where RNA and DNA should be housed - this means you need information to be completely ingrained within the system, so it would function as one and that it would be able to act on its own based on the genetic code it was given. I don't know if the analogy is even comprehensible. I just know for a fact that you don't destroy something that actually works. Her RNA and DNA are completely mixed-up and by gawd, she sucks as the mitochondrion.

Case in point, proclaiming that the FTE for a specific queue is too much. That queue has had 100++ tickets since I came on board and sadly, even the most brilliant (supposedly) mind in the UK has had issues in dealing with the tickets in that queue. Open tickets have been rotting there for MONTHS and since she has known exactly when the UK agents will be laid-off, she should have already done something about out German speaker months ago and she should have placed someone else in charge of that queue. Now, we're down to two local analysts who can't do much because they were not trained properly to deal with that number of tickets. Last I checked, the queue has reached over 170++. Imagine all the application owners from Nove Mesto to Marshalltown complaining and almost lunging at her. There was even one very specific email I had the displeasure to see. It was from an IT manager from Austin and it said that they were very tired of hearing that things will be investigated on. Everything about the service has been reactive. I remember once that a certain application called our attention and mentioned that everyone has been mistaken in routing tickets to a certain higher level of support and all she mentioned during that said meeting was "I'll coach the rep...". Number one, they're not called "reps..." cause they ain't selling stuff. Number two, the "rep" didn't really need coaching. According to the procedure as agreed upon in the SLA covering the said division, we are only providing up to a certain level of support. Why did I know that? Uh, because I know how to read... Or I made it a point to read something before I head on to a conference call. And should I not necessarily understand something, I will ask about it. I am not afraid to ask "reps" questions because they know more than I do... I'd rather look like I'm lost than look like I'm stupid.

Wonder idea number two... She wanted me to take the Six Sigma certification course being offered. Supposedly, I can certify the other people in the company. From what I understand, and from what was written in the ad, I can't really do that. Only Six Sigma certified trainers are allowed to do that...

So let me ask you this question... If you were hired just now and you had the option to learn about the service and the people, would you actually teach yourself the ropes or at least ask people who know?

I guess the answer for her is not really.

When the shit hits the fan... I wish no one is there to catch it all. If she makes anyone take the fall, I'll go to the director himself.

And that's why Dilbert's principle is true.