Mad Eye Moody, Jessina and Letting off Steam

I mentioned Mad Eye W- or the Fat Controller in my last blog. Well since then, he has shown that he has a little courage after all. The Leper Colony has been moved back into the bosom of the Complaints Department. This move took place on Friday. Regrettably, this meant that some more of our colleagues had to move upstairs into the main part of the Call Centre and therefore under the watchful eye of our Customer Services Director. One of the girls, Goodwill Jessina, who has been exiled upstairs is, to put it mildly, a tad loud. A lovely girl but with a voice like a foghorn. (I sincerely hope she does not mind me describing her so because I am going to point her in the direction of this blog so she can read all about it.) Yesterday, she and a young colleague were chatting and Mad Eye W- asked them to stop talking and get on with their work because their 'personal chit-chat' was distracting him. At least he didn't ask one of our Team Managers to go upstairs and tell them off like he did last time.

More of my colleagues have expressed their dissatisfaction with being described as "a waste of space" and I would dearly love to see a grievance made against him. It's not an easy job dealing with complaints and occasionally one needs to let off steam. Some do it by going for a fag, others by chewing their pens to bits. I have been known to let off steam very violently by clearing my desk (usually with a sweep of the arm), putting my coat on and very loudly saying I've enough of the job and I'm going home. Fortunately, I have not had one of these episodes too recently; nowadays I tend to do it by letting out a relatively quiet string of obscenities once the customer has got off the phone. One other way to let off steam is to have a little bit of a chat with a neighbouring colleague to take your mind off the last unpleasant character you spoke to and the next one you're going to have to speak to. Now it appears that even this is not allowed.

Mad Eye W- came to the company a couple of years ago. I think the idea was for him to be a bit of a troubleshooter; that's certainly how he saw his role. He decided that his purpose in life was to turn failing departments around and make them successful. He has not really succeeded with our department but then, the only way he could do that is to either reduce complaints or staff us properly. I doubt he will do either. Anyway, I just wish he would finish the job and then disappear into the sunset like a gunslinger who has finished off the bad guy or even like a rather unpleasant Mary Poppins, borne off into the sky hanging for dear life to his umbrella.