helter-skelter

Alright, so SDM actually threw me off this entire week. It was one hell of a tumultuous week. I had a very tiring week of training and some more thanks to her idiotic ideas.

She asked me to do a two-week training for our multilingual speakers. It was pretty bad. Supposedly, it was because she wanted me to attend SDI, since it was an in-house training to begin, with Chari at the helm, shouldn't there be a way to change it? The training plan had been four weeks all along, and she wanted someone to compress training... Now she is washing her hands off the incredibly stupid thing of compressing training after she promised me that the TLs will be taking care of the hands-on training of the newbies. She claims that it wasn't her idea to begin with. Argh! Talk about being incredibly two-faced! She even asked for Yong's help to assist in the hands-on training of the new starters I'm handling now. She probably thinks I'm incompetent when she's the one who still doesn't understand what the hell is her role in the company.

She fails to inform her TLs on time. Check out the email below:

From: SDM
Sent: 10 September 2008 19:49
To: Me
Cc: HR Manager; Director
Subject: RE: IELTS Assessment

Hi Meg,

I have already informed the TLs about this, though as discussed, we can only have JD and Rachelle join your review because of their schedule. JD will be coming in at 2-11pm starting next week until the end of September. Rota has been updated. We can deal with Sheila later on.

Kind regards,

SDM

When I got the email from Rachelle, one of the TLs...

From: Rachelle the TL
Sent: 12 September 2008 14:45
To: Me
Subject: RE: IELTS Assessment

Hi Meg,

I know we are going to take the IELTS exam but wasn’t aware of the of the training.

For September 15, I have a service review meeting with (bleep) at 2pm, so maybe I’ll be join around 2:30 pm. Depends on how long the call will be, hopefully not much issue so I can join earlier.

Thanks,

Rachelle

So there you are, she claims that she has done something only for me to realize that nothing has been done from her end. Her people aren't my people and I'm thankful that I have no direct reports to worry about. Thanks goodness that the director was copied and I was able to make sure that she can't manipulate me anymore. I keep asking her to document her "directives" from here on forward. That way, I can cover my ass in the future.

She also claims that I'm not professional enough because she thinks that I don't know how to multi-task. The effect of which can be catastrophic if I train more people in more hours than I am supposed to. This seems ridiculous but yes, teaching is a very difficult job. Throw in eager-beavers in class and the dumb blond wannabes with the older but supposedly technical gramps and grams, plus the classic apathetic "rockers" and you've got a misanthrope trainer in the making. Yes, I dedicate the eight working hours to my trainees. As if it matters. Training really was designed that way. She claims that I said something like I'm gonna need clones if the amount of work stands to be the same all the time. Ok, I said that to the HR Manager, who is a friend, and that comment was not addressed towards her.

Argh! Screw her. Mr. Director should kick her out! Bonus though, cos she keeps on messing up, the entire European division of the company we're supporting has started to complain about her. Let's see if she can still save her ass if she gets confronted with all the issues starting to plague the HD.

Helter-skelter... everything's coming down fast... everything's going down fast.

I swear, it's like the director hired Charles Manson as our boss or something. The difference is, Charles Manson still had some form of charisma. She doesn't really have that much charisma... I think everyone in the office has a point against her.

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.

A Customer's Worst Nightmare

Yes... I have fallen prey to the snazzy advertising and the cheesy theme about connecting to loved-ones abroad. Aren't we all suckers for that whole crap about connecting to people you care for the most?! At one point or another, you only want to make your life easier, hence my need to have internet connection at home.

I have been a loyal consumer of this broadband company. In fact, I was one of the oldest customers of this brand. Ever since they started their campaign, I have been loyally paying my bills, lining-up to get decent customer service and yes, even commenting on their forums. I even have a friend who works for them!

Last week, I was aghast! No internet connection! Meaning, I won't have the chance to see and talk with Jeoff who's MILES away. Did I ever mention how much I was looking forward to talking with him?! Well, I was! I was looking forward to it very much! I mean, it's bad enough we're not together, let alone not seeing each other, but OMG, those people from the broadband company didn't make it easy.

On Saturday, I was tasked to troubleshoot the connection with this agent named "Jasper Atienza" over the phone. And I was very very patient. I know what it is like giving instructions over the phone since I used to work as an Internet Service Guide. Oh dear! Damned thing is I knew how to manipulate the situation too. I asked for an immediate house visit by their technician and I wanted it PRONTO! Since I was just a few blocks away and I have been with their company for a year, so and so... Poor "Jasper" had to say yes, because I bet his AHT (Average Handling Time) was increasing due to moi.

Fast forward a few hours after, I called again. Some lame ass agent answered the call and said that she is seeing a report. I called for a supervisor. Wanting a direct quote from a supervisor. After 15 minutes of being put on hold, some supervisor named "Mike Revilla". (Why I'm so lavishly adorning my blog with their names is because I'm SURE these aren't their real names!) He promised me a visit this Monday. So I assumed things were going well.

Lo and behold, Monday came and the people didn't visit me on the supposed time. I set an appointment from 9AM - 12NN. People know that this means BEFORE lunch and it means WITHIN the hours of 9 in the morning until 12 in the afternoon. I called up and some dude which I didn't bother getting the name of answered and got all panicky and crazy. I was really pissed...

It's one thing to let people know of an estimated resolution time. It's another when you don't get what you were promised or what you were told. The agent said that if I could wait one more hour.

It was 2PM. I was getting mighty pissed.

"If you don't get your tech people here within the day, I swear, I'm gonna tell all my friends and my family and everyone else I know never to sign up for your lame ass service again..." I hung up and sat down. I smoked a stick. Ugh! So infuriating!

The tech people came at around 7PM. Time when I got to work.

My dad was messaging me the whole time. They want this and that and I couldn't attend to these question because I was busy!


When I got home, I needed to reconfigure a whole set of internet connections that they didn't use and the reconfigure the one they used. (READ: How many LAN Cards can you have in one PC? Apparently we have three!) After 15 minutes, I was surfing omce more...

I feel kinda bad now that I yelled at the customer service dude last week. It wasn't his fault. But it does get really tiring and really disappointing when people tell you things and they don't deliver. Especially when they place blame on someone or something (THINK: It's raining really hard, We have a lot of customers scheduled, etc.). I'm not saying I always do a bang-up job when I'm the one promising something. It just means that I try. Sadly, those people I spoke with were not even trying. They were probably willing to agitate me so I'd hang the phone up and just redial and I'd fall into the crack of the almighty telephone router system.

So whoever reads this and you're working for a customer service company or you're a customer-please, be nicer.