Tales from the Dark Satanic Mill

Jester has moved

2007-08-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

I have been posting blogs on this site and another for some time. I have now decided that I want to reduce the time taken to blog (by about 1½ minutes or so) because I have so little time on our home computer so I regret that from now on, I will no longer post my blogs on this site. You can still read Tales from the Dark Satanic Mill at the address below:

http://goodwilljester.wordpress.com

Sorry, Blogspot.

Sir Topham Hat's departure continued.

2007-07-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Well, the dust has had a bit of time to settle at the Dark Satanic Mill and we're getting used to the idea of not having a Fat Controller around anymore. I am still quite ambivalent about it all. I never liked the man and, as long as nobody emerges to take his place, it will be a more comfortable Satanic Mill in which to work. There is a "but" here; I am still uncomfortable about the way he departed.

Yesterday, I asked one of our Team Managers if she knew the story. She said that she has heard that he was told by the new Customer Operations Director that his job had ceased to exist and it was suggested that he and the company go their separate ways. Well, actually, the company would stay put and the Fat Controller would leave. I think leaving was one alternative but I don't have a clue what the other one was and it may be that he didn't either. Maybe he was asked to go on the phones with the rest of the hoi polloi. That would have been an interesting experience for him.

I'm sure the Fat Controller has got a nice redundancy package and will find somewhere else to use his man-management skills and new staff on whom to exercise his charm. There is to be no replacement, although there has been a slight restructure within the Mill, with even more Chiefs to lord it over the Indians.

I think I might have said this before but Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change.

Jester bids Farewell to the Fat Controller.

2007-07-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

It is with great regret that I have to announce the departure from the Dark Satanic Mill of Mad Eye Moody aka The Fat Controller.

Yesterday, when I came into work, rumours were already doing the rounds that he had left the company. The first rumour I heard was that he had had a disagreement with the new Customer Operations Director on Friday and had been suspended. I later heard that he had been sacked and then that he had walked out.

Today, we received an e-mail confirming his departure. Here is the announcement so you can see just how specious (thanks to my husband for coming up with the word) and hypocritical (my word) business announcements can be:

I announce that [Sir Topham Hat], Director of Claims Management for [the Dark Satanic Mill], has decided to move on to pursue other opportunities outside the [Satanic Mill] Group.

As a result of proposed changes to our operational structure, I have agreed with [Topham] that he will not be required to continue to support the operation and therefore this takes place with immediate effect.

I am sure that you will join me in thanking [Topham] for his effort and commitment to [the Dark Satanic Mill] over the past 2 and a half years and we wish him every success for the future.

IK

Customer Operations Director

(I would like to apologise for the poor quality of this announcement. Had I composed it, it would have been far more pleasant to read.)

Now, there was no love lost between the Fat Controller and me and I am not sad to see him go (in fact I have been experiencing the most base schadenfreude imaginable about it all day) but I am a tad uncomfortable about it all. There is a genuinely Machiavellian feel to all this and I am confident that the first rumour I heard, was the closest one to the truth. Clash of personalities or not, I get the feeling that the Dark Satanic Mill was not big enough for the two big men.

What is more, with the Fat Controller gone, I have lost a valuable source of stories for this blog. That is a real shame.

Jester, Annual Leave and Amusing Quotes, a Postscript

2007-07-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a previous blog that I had almost run out of Annual Leave. It was a great worry to me at the time because it meant that I would not be able to take any time off over Christmas and would not be able to go and visit my family, who live a long way away from me. I shouldn't have worried. It was simply our Resource Planning Department showing me just how many brain cells they have between them.

I smelled a rat when I totted up just how much leave I have taken to be with Bobbie when she goes to clinic. I've been at the Dark Satanic Mill for over 11 years now and my leave entitlement has gone up to the maximum, 216 hours. After some rapid mental arithmetic, I realised that they had got my entitlement wrong and had put me down as having 134 hours. Now, I really don't know how they managed to calculate it but I'm sure it involved an Excel Spreadsheet.

I let my manager know and she passed on the message. I soon had a revised Holiday Sheet in front of me. They had realised their mistake and had increased my annual entitlement to... wait for it... 162 hours! Well, they were getting there. I let my manager know they still hadn't got it right but she asked me if she could let them know the following morning. She didn't like to tax their brain cell too much in one day.

After a quick reminder the following day, they finally got their act together and I have a Holiday Sheet with the correct entitlement of 216 hours showing. This means that instead of 1 hours leave to last me until April 1 2008, I now have somewhere in the region of 75 hours. It is worrying though. I really should have spotted it earlier.

I can also confirm that I have been given the last week in July that I had rather stupidly forgotten to request and so the breaking loose of All Hell Chez Jester has been averted. I feel a bit like Doctor Who after defeating yet another seemingly invincible opponent.

Jester, the Gay Gordons, Nasreddin and being Politically Correct

2007-07-07T00:54:00.001-07:00

I very briefly mentioned the Gay Gordons in my last blog. It was the briefest of introductions and it really does not do them justice. They are a gay couple and both have the same given name (hence the Gay Gordons). They have been in the Complaints Department for roughly the same time and they are two of the nicest men I know (and Gordon H is likely to read this so I'm telling the truth, Gordon, you are!) I refer to Gordon H as my Gay Lover because when we went to our former colleague's retirement do, Gordon snogged me after a slight misunderstanding. I'm pretty certain Gordon B was watching at the time but he never seemed put out at the time. He's always been an absolute sweetie to me too.

Gordon H sits next to Goodwill Gary and they're currently learning Urdu from a number of "teachers", including Jessina. They are actually doing a good job of it too. I'm quite impressed by their fluency. They do seem to be interested in words for body parts though. They are constantly laughing and joking, which is generally frowned upon in the Dark Satanic Mill, but they really liven the place up. Nowadays, frequently in Urdu.

I was at lunch with the Gay Gordons, Mr Grumpy, Jeannie, Jessica and various other Jesters when the first incident of political correctness occurred. Mr Grumpy put a slice of cucumber over each eye (he was eating a salad at the time). He took them off and ate them and then turned to his fellow diners and asked "What do they do, anyway?" He was referring to the cucumber slices so I said "They reduce puffiness. Don't give them to Gordon." Gordon was amused. Gordon B was relieved. We really couldn't do with Gordon's puffiness being reduced after all.

The second coup for Political Correctness was when I told Nasreddin a joke. Nasreddin is fantastic. He works from 4pm to 8pm because he has to care for his chronically ill wife. He looks just like the Hood from Thunderbirds (the puppet, not Ben Kingsley from the live action film) and doesn't seem to mind me telling him so. I should also stress that he is an Indian Muslim. On Thursday, I told him I was going to take a risk and tell him a joke. I said he was entitled to report me to HR if he was offended. At that point, he started smiling. I told him a joke that had caused a great deal of controversy a few months ago. The one about suicide bombers.

Nasreddin has a great sense of humour and the main butt of his jokes are himself, Indians and Asians in general. Still, I was slightly worried. It's a calculated risk but I shouldn't have been so concerned. He roared with laughter and then said "Oh yes, I am going to HR about that one!" I don't think he did because there have been no repercussions.

My point is to be truly inclusive you have to take risks. True friendship has firm foundations and taking the piss or telling slightly risky jokes will not shake them. I hope that I have proved that the Gay Gordons and Nasreddin are true friends. I feel very lucky when I hear the banter going on around me between Straights, Whites, Asians, Gays (sorry, Gay men and Lesbians) and any other "group" you can think of. We are a reasonably close knit group in our Department and I'm happy to be part of it.

Jay, Pennywise and the Dark Satanic Mill

2007-07-07T00:13:00.001-07:00

Jay's been off work for a while; he's had surgery on his foot. I've got his mobile number so we keep in touch occasionally by text while he was off. He came back to work on Thursday and called me over while I was on my way to the brown water machine. I asked him, as I have asked countless times before, if he has heard about his disciplinary. He answered in the same repetitive manner that he hasn't. I have looked on the Internet to see if there is any time limit for an employer to take action after a disciplinary but, as far as I can see, there is none.

Pennywise came into work yesterday for a meeting with Human Resources. While he was in the office, he chatted to Jessica and our managers and finally to Jackie. He did not even look at me. I'm not sure why. Maybe he's been reading this blog.

I may have explained that Pennywise is a born again Christian and so is Jackie. He had brought in a couple of books that he found interesting and was discussing them with Jackie. I was talking to Gary and one of the Gay Gordons at the time. Gordon was especially annoyed because Pennywise is still off sick and has been signed off for at least one more month and possibly two and was now in the office distracting various jesters from their work. While we were talking/slagging Pennywise off, Goodwill Josie came over to join us. She said "He's got his holy books with him. One of them's called How to Walk on Water. They're going on about how great they are. It's sickening."

I find it disturbing, myself. I've never really been able to trust born again Christians. They always want to convert me to their mad religion. Give me empirical proof that God exists and I might start to believe but I can't guarantee that I will believe in Jehovah. I'm more likely to go for a pantheon. I've always been an exponent of the view "Jack of all trades; Master of none."

Pennywise left after his discussion with Jackie. He had been in the Mill for 2½ hours. Add that to the 2½ days he has worked since 20th April and it really doesn't amount to much. He told Jessica that he's being treated for depression. He also said that his doctor told him that depression tends to affect highly intelligent people. I'm sure it does, I suffer from it myself (and still come into work every day) but I'm absolutely sure that suffering from depression does not automatically mean you're highly intelligent. Well, not unless you're called Jester, anyway.

Jester, Bobbie, her kidneys and the Resource Planner

2007-07-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had to take my youngest daughter, Bobbie, to an out-patients appointment at the Renal Clinic at our local NHS Trust Hospital. I mentioned in an earlier blog that Bobbie has Henoch Schonlein Purpura (or HSP for short). The main area of concern is her kidneys and a recent blood test showed that her kidney function has deteriorated so the Doctor has put her on Steroids (with all the associated supportive drugs) and re-biopsied her kidney last Thursday. She was asked to come back into the clinic on Monday - i.e. yesterday.

My husband was not going to be able to take her, so on Friday I applied for 4 hours annual leave so I could take her. Our Resource Planners refused it, so I told my manager that I would have to take it as unpaid dependant leave. She was fine with that.

Yesterday, I took Bobbie to the clinic. The doctors increased her dose of Ramipril because her kidneys are still leaking protein into her urine. The consultant (not the usual one, who is on holiday) also told her that they are thinking of using Cyclophosphamide, which would suppress her immune system, which is causing all this trouble in the first place, or try a Plasma Interchange, which would entail removing the plasma from her blood and replacing it with new - a sort of human Power-Flush. Bobbie took this all in her stride. I have to say, I am really proud of her.

I went to work as soon as we got home and my manager had a little anecdote waiting for me. She was eager to tell me, it had amused her so much.

That morning, she had e-mailed our Resource Planners and asked them to mark me down as being on dependant leave for the morning. She had received an e-mail back saying that I should have taken it as annual leave. She replied that I had applied for annual leave but it had been refused (by the same resource planner). The reply then came from the head of our Resource Planning Department. He said that hospital appointments are made 6 weeks in advance and I should have applied for my leave 6 weeks in advance. She replied to him (and I think she enjoyed herself doing it) by explaining that Bobbie's illness is not predictable. Sometimes Bobbie is quite well and then sometimes she is not (all very true). When Bobbie gets worse and needs to see a Consultant, her body doesn't give her 6 weeks' notice so that her mother can apply for leave and, therefore, sometimes Jester can only give a couple of days notice. She did not get a reply.

That's what I love about resource planners. They never let you down.

Jester, Annual Leave and Amusing Quotes

2007-06-28T23:34:00.001-07:00

I discovered to my horror, yesterday, that I've almost run out of annual leave. I also discovered that I only booked one week's leave in July when we've booked and paid for a 2 week holiday and I've had to put in a request for the 2nd week. I sincerely hope the request goes through or all hell is going to break loose Chez Jester. The problem is, and I think I've mentioned it before, our Resource Planning Team is mainly comprised of petty gauleiters, who enjoy nothing more than refusing leave on the grounds of staffing levels and moaning about how much time we spend on "After Call". It's my mistake though, so I'm going to have to sort it out.

I heard from an ex-Jester this morning, who has moved further up north and now works in a call centre up there. He sent me some amusing things he overheard at work recently. I sincerely hope the quotees were joking but you can't always be sure. Here they are:

Where does wind come from? Is it made by those wind turbines?

Was Jesus around at the time of the dinosaurs?

It's great, isn't it?

Glass v Polycarbonate

2007-06-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

Please read this if you haven't already and sign the petition. It is truly a worthy cause. My heart goes out to Blake and his family.

Not in my name

2007-06-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

My husband told me yesterday that Chemical Ali has been sentenced to death. You can follow this link to the story on BBC News if you want. I find it very disturbing indeed because I thought the whole idea of the "liberation" of Iraq was so that the Iraqi people could have a Western style democracy. I can't see where hanging, or any other form of execution, comes into it at all. Now, I know the US has a federal death penalty and that 38 of the 50 States have the death penalty bu then I really am unable to think of the US as a true democracy because of it.

I am proud to be part of the EU because of its unequivocal opposition to the death penalty. No country can become part of the EU unless it has first abolished it. I could not live in a country which executes its criminals, no matter how heinous the crime. People sometimes asks me how I would feel if my daughter had been murdered by, for instance, Ian Huntley. I cannot even begin to imagine how that would feel but I do not believe that it is a valid argument for the death penalty. My opinion would not count in such circumstances, anyway. How could I possibly have a balanced opinion if my daughter had been murdered?

Some of these people have told me that they would happily pull the lever, administer the lethal injection or pull the trigger on child killers. That always puts me in mind of a story I heard about Heinrich Himmler. He had gone to watch the mass killing of Jews in Poland. At that point, they were still being shot and he was said to have vomited after some brains from one victim splashed onto his coat. So, don't say "I'd happily execute them" until you know what it entails.

My opposition to the death penalty is not well thought out anyway. I simply believe that nobody has the right to take the life of another human being for any reason whatsoever. We're only on this planet for a very short time. To terminate a life before it has been completed is a dreadful thing to do. I don't believe in any form of afterlife. I don't believe that there is retribution waiting for "evil-doers" in some kind of firy hell or reward for "good" people in heaven. As far as I am aware, you are born, you live, you die. Full Stop. So how can we possibly justify the killing of anybody.

So to get back to Chemical Ali, he had no right to order the killing of the Kurds in 1988 but neither does anybody have the right to order his killing. He is on this earth for his short allotted span and, no matter how bad he has been, he should be allowed to complete it.

Jester, Pennywise, Jessica and Smokey Robinson

2007-06-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

Pennywise is due back at work today. I'm not holding my breath and we will see. I'm not going in today either because my youngest daughter, Bobbie, has a hospital appointment and, to be frank, Bobbie's health is more important than the Dark Satanic Mill.

For any of you who are interested, Bobbie has Henoch Schonlein Purpura and presents the following symptoms: purpuric rash, joint inflammation and pain, stomach pain and kidney problems. The last is why she is now under one of the leading kidney specialists in the country. Not only is he a superb doctor but he never talks down to Bobbie (who is 16) and has a great sense of humour too. Bobbie will get better in the end but it is a slow process. Poor kid.

Anyway, I've asked my great friend and adopted little sister, Goodwill Jessica, to let me know if Pennywise comes into work today. Some of you may wonder why I refer to her as my adopted little sister. I'm a youngest child, with two older sisters and when I was much, much younger than I am now, I used to yearn for a younger brother or sister. Unfortunately, this yearning never went away. I've always got on well with Jessica and during one of our many conversations we have had over the years, it transpired that she is the eldest of four girls and always wanted a big sister. I think fate made us have that conversation and we adopted each other then and there.

Jessica and I work well together, which is useful because we both deal with high level complaints and after recent events, what we all needed most was teamwork. She is also a true friend to me and has been totally supportive to me at my lowest points. Unfortunately, like many jesters (and clowns) Smokey Robinson's immortal words apply quite well to me:

"Just like Pagliacci did / I try to keep my surface hid / Smiling in the crowd I try / But in a lonely room I cry / The tears of a clown"

I'm not lovelorn or anything, just a tad depressive and Jessica, being very sensitive to my moods, always knows what to do and when. I'm very, very lucky to have a friend like her and I hope that I can return the compliment as and when necessary.

Jester, Her Chair and the Unusual Customer

2007-06-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

I nearly fell off my chair on Wednesday...

Actually, let's rewind that and make it a bit more dramatic...

I fell off my chair on Wednesday. I'm a High Level or Complex Jester and deal with complaints that have been addressed to our Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer amongst other things. So, not unsurprisingly, I was asked to respond to a complaint on Monday from somebody who had decided to write to an Important Person at the Dark Satanic Mill.

I spoke to him briefly on the Monday and agreed to ring him back on the Wednesday because his toilet was going to be repaired on the Tuesday. He seemed a nice enough chap at the time.

So, on Wednesday, I rang him back and we chatted a while and I told him all the things I would do to make sure he would not receive such poor service next time (one of the things we could do is to remove some of contractors from our Network [but not the ones who read this blog!]). Mr Customer seemed quite confident that feeding his issues back to the relevant managers (I'm really getting the hang of Mill Newspeak now) would have the desired effect and so we turned to the thorny issue of Com-pen-sa-tion. We call it the C-word - a little in-joke for jesters all over the English-speaking world.

I offered an amount, not much, but a little higher than I thought his complaint merited. Going to the top ups the stakes usually. His answer left me speechless and on the floor, having fallen off my chair. He told me he did not want any money, he just wanted to know that we had done something about it.

I actually had to apologise for going silent and I was very honest with him. I told him that usually, when customers refuse a gesture of goodwill, it's because they don't think it's high enough. I had also gone silent because his answer had left me a bit short of breath with a funny fluttery feeling in my stomach. It is an unusual situation, you see, and I'm not well equipped to cope with it. I'm more used to having customers say things like "I'll see you in court" and some of them do actually carry out their threat, although they would probably be very disappointed not to see an insignificant little jester in the dock while the judge puts a black cap on his head and sentences her to a slow and painful death involving lots of money. I'm not sure who represents the Dark Satanic Mill at the Small Claims Court but it certainly not me or any of my fellow jesters.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to see a return to old values, you know the "I don't need money, it's just nice to know you're doing something about it" sort of thing.

I would also like to tell you that no chairs were harmed during the making of this blog.

Jester and blocked e-mails

2007-06-21T23:53:00.000-07:00

I love e-mail admin. It's great fun. I sent the Dark Satanic Mill's Dignity at Work policy home by e-mail so I could refer to it when writing my last blog and the company's mail marshal blocked it because the policy contains the word "sex". Oooh, how rude! I went through the e-mail and substituted S's with 5s and it got through. Machines aren't as clever as people are they? I then tried to send the e-mail which had alerted me to the blocked mail and that was blocked too! Here it is:

-----Original Message-----From: mmadmin@darksatanicmillplc.com [mailto:mmadmin@darksatanicmillplc.com ] Sent: 19 June 2007 15:02To: [No, you're not having my e-mail address!] Subject: Your e-mail message was blockedMailMarshal (an automated content monitoring gateway) has stopped the following email for the following reason:It believes it may contain unacceptable language, or inappropriate material. Message: B000db40ed.00000001.mml From: [No, you're not having my e-mail address!] To: [No, you're not having my e-mail address!] Subject: Rod Please remove any inappropriate language and send it again.The blocked email will be automatically deleted after 1 day.MailMarshal Rule: Content Security (Outbound) : Block Unacceptable LanguageScript Offensive Language (Basic) Triggered in BodyExpression: sex Triggered 1 times weighting 5Email Content Security provided by NetIQ MailMarshal.

Okay, it's a bit heavy reading but it amused me at the time. Oh and please don't try the e-mail addresses. I hope they don't exist but if they do, they're not for the place where I work.

Thanks.
Jester
xx

Jester and the Dignity at Work Policy

2007-06-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we were sent our Dignity at Work policy by e-mail. This was to be "cascaded" to anybody without e-mail accounts so that everybody would have to obey the rules. By the way, I love office-speak. Don't say pass, say cascade. It's a bit like Newspeak in 1984, if a (tiny) bit less sinister. This policy has caused much amusement in the Complaints Department in the Dark Satanic Mill because we're now not allowed to take the piss out of each other in case we offend:

a) each other,
b) the powers that be or
c) some over-sensitive, bleeding heart liberal who just happens to be in earshot.

Great. I'm now no longer allowed to tell my Team Manager that Jasper is coming over all queer. Jasper is no longer allowed to call me Dolly Looselegs (and yes, it is a slanderous nickname). He's not allowed to call Mr Grumpy Grandad and I'm not allowed to call Mr Grumpy Mr Grumpy and, as my Manager said so unhappily, she's no longer allowed to call me a Lanky Streak of anything.

The really sad thing is that, although there are some words that are really beyond the pale and I would hesitate to use them in this blog, even as examples, others are used as badges of pride. Jasper does not mind me saying he's coming over all queer again (I sometimes use the plural, which makes him scream with laughter) or calling him a poof. He regularly refers to himself as a poof but taking the piss out of each other can be a very strong indication of how much a member of the team you are. It can show acceptance of the highest order. Jessina is not offended when I tell her she has a big gob. For a start, it's true, she does, but also she knows that I have the confidence to tell her that when I'm white and she's asian. She also has the confidence to take the piss out of me in return. That has to be a good thing.

So, let's rewrite the dignity at work policy and keep it simple:

Don't be offensive
Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself
Keep your sense of humour

and don't forget to tell the Gay Ian Paisley the Irish Electrician joke at least twice a year.

Jessica, Jemma and the Delicate Situation

2007-06-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

There were panic stations at the Dark Satanic Mill today. Well, not throughout the Dark Satanic Mill; just in our part, the complaints department. My colleague, friend, evil sidekick and "adopted" daughter, Gemma, was logging complaints that had been received by phone in our call centre at about 4pm this afternoon. She was looking at one when she came over to me with a puzzled look on her face.

"I'm not sure what to do with this one, Jester," she said. "One of our engineers has been taken hostage by a customer." I asked her for the job number and brought the details up on my computer and there it was. The notes said that the customer had said that the engineer had turned up with the wrong part and she wasn't going to let him leave the house until he had fitted the right part. The girl who had put the note on the job then spoke to the engineer and he had apparently confirmed that he was being held hostage.

This struck me as bizarre for a number of reasons:

1) How could the engineer get the right part without leaving the house?
2) Why had the girl not tried to get help to the engineer? She could have called the police for instance or the engineer's field manager.
3) Why had she "diaried" the job to our department so we could pick it up a couple of hours too late? (And that is quick for us too!)

After her notes were some notes from a team manager, who had seemed more concerned about getting the correct parts for the boiler than managing to negotiate the release of the "hostage". Now, I know hostage negotiation is a difficult job and is best carried out by trained professionals but I did think that telling the customer we were going to call the police might have done the trick. Instead, he had tried to find out if the right part was locally available.

Then nothing. No more notes. For all we knew, the engineer could have died a nasty, protracted death at the hands of an irate customer.

I'm very worried about looking a fool so I didn't ring the police. Instead, I first tried to contact the girl who had put the original notes on and then the team manager, with no success. I then rang the field manager and asked him if he was aware that one of his engineers was being held hostage (we hadn't had a call from a relieved engineer telling us that the situation had been defused and he was once again a free man). The FM (field manager) asked which engineer I was referring to. I gave the name of the poor unfortunate. He said, no, he was not aware but he had had a call from head office saying that this very engineer had been stuck on a job for 3 hours and they had had to reschedule some of his appointments. Not bloody surprising was my thought. He'd probably been locked in a cupboard or cellar for the 3 hours.

I asked him to ring the engineer and check he was okay. I said the poor man probably needed a welfare call. After a couple more unsuccessful attempts to call the team manager, I rang the FM back. He put me straight:

No the engineer had not been taken hostage. He had turned up with the wrong part and the customer had been a little bit annoyed. Not with him, though, she had been annoyed with the previous engineers who had attended. She had then asked if the engineer could stay in the house while she tried to find the right part. She had been speaking to the girl at the Dark Satanic Mill who had put a note on the job stating that the engineer had been taken hostage. The girl had then spoken to the engineer who said "It's like being held hostage". He had been joking. We had tried to find the part but it was not locally available and he had left the house, safe and well, and gone onto his next job.

Panic over. I then, finally, managed to get through to the team manager, who knew that the engineer had not been taken hostage. I pointed out to him that it might have made our jobs a little easier had the following rules been followed:

1) Don't say an engineer has been taken hostage when he hasn't.
2) Don't diary to the complaints department when there is no complaint and an engineer hasn't been taken hostage.
3) If there are notes on a job saying an engineer has been taken hostage and you know he hasn't. Put notes on saying he hasn't been taken hostage.
4) If an engineer has been taken hostage, don't diary it to complaints. He'll be dead before we pick it up.
5) If an engineer has been taken hostage, try ringing the police. I mean, it's not as if they have anything to do, is it? (Sorry, that was just plain bad of me.)

Now, I really wanted to finish this blog with a video of Jack Point (the jester from Yeomen of the Guard) singing "I have a song to sing-o" but could I find it??? Could I heck as like! So here is Tundra Rap from the Mighty Boosh instead.

Pennywise, Jester, Copperfield and Portable Blogs

2007-06-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

Pennywise was due back at work today. Do you know that since 23 April, 3 days before I posted Jester, Jessica, Pennywise and the Proverbial, he has been at work for a grand total of 2½ days? Anyway, he didn't come back today and now he's been signed off for another two weeks. Now, I really don't want to be uncharitable but I'm in grave danger of being so because it's so infuriating. We've picked up all the pieces now. They're well and truly gone. So what have I to complain about? Jessica and I have this nasty niggling feeling that when he does come back, he'll have an uncomfortable couple of weeks and then all this will be swept under the carpet because it happened once before and he got away with it.

I was off last year with stress and as a welfare move, my manager put me onto standard complaints as a temporary measure (I'm an established member of the Complex Team). Then, a few months later, I was told that because I had not been dealing with Complex and High Level Complaints, I would be marked down as Below Expectations at my next PDR. I called in the Union and put in a grievance and explained that I had been put onto standard complaints to reduce my stress and now they were simply increasing it. Our HR Manager came up with a good compromise. My PDR was put back by two months to allow me to "catch up" and I got a "Meets". That was fine by me. My reason for being a little cynical now is that Pennywise has never had to fight the system like I had to last year and I hadn't left a huge mess for my colleagues to clean up.

Well, enough bitching for one blog. My original idea for this blog was inspired when I was recently sat on the bog reading Copperfield's blog. Okay, I was sat on the toilet reading Copperfield's book (well worth buying and cheap at the price), but bog rhymes with blog and I'm sure the contents of the book come from his numerous blogs. It's a nice handy way of getting the blog up into the smallest room. I don't have a lap top and the desk top is a bit bulky for carrying upstairs and downstairs when I need to go.

Maybe I'm being a bit familiar calling him Copperfield (and I sincerely hope he doesn't mind) but I feel like I know him now. Maybe it's because I'm married to an articulate policeman (and have been for 21 years, bless him!) or maybe it's because I've read a few of his blogs now, on and off the toilet. Or maybe both reasons apply. Anyway, I like calling him Copperfield, so you'll just have to lump it.

So I was wondering where he gets the time to blog. A cursory glance through his last few blogs shows that he's posted one every other day for a little while. He's prolific. Aah, then I remembered. Policemen work shifts (well, the ones who do real police work do, anyway), which means they're at home when other members of the family aren't (except my unemployed daughter) and they're awake when other members of the family aren't (except my insomniac son). My husband spends hours in front of the computer in the morning trying to get his sluggish digestive system into action (usually with little success). I'm sure he could blog if he put his mind to it, although I think he might plead superfluity - there are quite a few police blogs out there already. So he bubble shoots, reads blogs, Copperfield's and Gadget's amongst them (it was him who got me reading them in the first place) but not mine - he's too embarrassed - and reading The Telegraph online. He also checks out Amazon and puts books, DVDs and CDs onto his wish list.

Maybe PC Copperfield skips the bubble shooting and concentrates instead on his writing. If he does, I'm glad he does. It's great to see my poor hubby isn't in a minority of one (although when it comes to insufferable wives, he probably is) and that other policemen view the job in much the same way as he does. Now if Copperfield ever read my blog (on the toilet or not as the case may be) - that would be nice!

Great Minds thinking alike

2007-06-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

There is an expression "Great minds think alike". It's probably true. However, I think it's also probably true that "Small minds think alike". Please read the following extracts from two letters recently received at the Dark Satanic Mill. One was addressed to me and the other was addressed to my friend and colleague Goodwill Gerard (I'm running out of suitable names now).

"So, to insult my family with this obscene offer ... only shows your customer service dept is about as good as your engineers" (To Jester. I have quoted it verbatim, including abbreviations and lack of punctuation.)

"Regrettably your compensation process seems to be as ill co-ordinated as the emergency service about which i first complained." (To Gerard. Again, quoted verbatim, warts and all.)

Talking of pusillanimity, I had the pleasure of humming the theme from Thomas the Tank Engine today while the Fat Controller was stood a few feet from my desk talking to my managers. He won't have known that it was directed at him but I enjoyed it. Of course, I'm referring to him when I mention pusillanimity, not me. I just wanted to make sure you know.

Keeping this side of insanity

2007-06-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

Inspector Gadget wondered how I manage to stay sane and that got me thinking. My family don't keep me sane, they make me more insane. Having said that, I know that I make them insane too so we're even there. This blog keeps me sane because it creates a little bit of objective distance for me so I can see the madness that is the Dark Satanic Mill for what it is. Finally, what I get up to when I doff my cap and bells keeps me sane. Here is a pictorial guide to what Jester gets up to in her spare time.

Music:

Sport:

and yes, I am one of the dancers. I wear a different kind of cap and bells when I do this.

More sport:

And also:

and:

There are more but I think this is enough for now.

Jester, Audits and Defences

2007-06-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

About two and a bit years ago, the Dark Satanic Mill had an Internal FSA Audit. I remember it well. Our Head Office in the West Midlands sent somebody up to our office and he went to various people in various departments and asked them lots of questions. When he came to our Department, he asked me lots of questions.

At the time I was dealing with Underwriter complaints (the customer, not happy with our response would "escalate" the complaint to our Underwriter, who would send the complaint to us and we would respond on their behalf), sending Final Response Letters and preparing FOS Files.

My training thus far had been notable in its absence. Everything I had been doing I had worked out for myself or by asking my colleagues at Head Office. For instance, I had had no idea how to frame a Final Response Letter and this had only come to light when FOS had refused to deal with a complaint because my Final Response Letter to the customer was not a Final Response Letter. My colleague from HQ had sent me a few examples and I had been able to frame one that would satisfy FOS. My FOS files had been a shambles, to put it politely.

So this gentleman from HQ came over and asked me a few questions. I was never blessed with the gift of blagging so I answered them honestly. I don't really remember very well what they were but I know he asked me what training I had received for what I was doing and I answered truthfully that I had received no formal training and anything I did know I had picked up as I went along.

He thanked me for my time and went his way.

In no time at all, the Fat Controller (see previous posts for my opinion of him), our Customer Service Director, was at my desk asking me why I had told the auditor what I had told him. I answered truthfully that I had told him the truth, no more, no less. Was there a problem with that? Well, yes, actually, there was. I had made the Dark Satanic Mill look bad. I told him that I was sorry but I don't actually like lying and I didn't think that I would have been able to pull off a lie in this case. The Fat Controller went his way, still not happy with me.

A little later, our Internal Operations Director came over to me. I actually quite like this man. He's a big bloke. A rugby player with a West Midlands accent. He knows who I am and will have a quick chat with me if he gets the opportunity. However, he asked me much the same questions as the Fat Controller had done and got the same responses. He went away just as dissatisfied with me as the Fat Controller.

I was glad I caused a stir. It had been scandalous how I had been treated. I had been thrown in at the deep end and I had not had a clue what I was doing or how to do it. I do feel my card was marked at the time, although I had simply been a good Quaker girl and told the truth. There is no love lost between me and the Fat Controller now, although I still get on with the Internal Operations Director.

So fast forward two and a bit years to Yesterday. Ah, Yesterday (no I'm not going to break into song, not even a Lennon/McCartney song). Yesterday, I prepared a Defence for a County Court Claim and before you ask, no, I am not a solicitor. I have not even had the rudimentary legal training that some of my colleagues have received. No, I didn't want to do it but I was left with no option. One of the cases that my colleague Pennywise (see previous posts) has left with me is a County Court Claim. I had been waiting for our company solicitor to return from leave because I really did not know what to do with it (I always send mine to him so he can do all the paperwork but Pennywise had not done this). Our solicitor, lets call him Anthony, told me that we had run out of time and I would need to get a defence in as quickly as possible and one thing we could be sure of was he wasn't going to do it because he had a pile of stuff on his desk reaching to the ceiling that was more of a priority.

So poor old Jester had to do it. I spoke to Jessica, who has prepared a defence (in much the same circumstances as me) and she printed off hers and gave it to me so I could use it as a template. I did the rest. I did the investigation (including speaking to our Contractor), I drafted the defence, which took all day, and I e-mailed it to Anthony so he could check it and amend it. I did not get it back and I'm off work today walking in the Lakes with my husband, who has to deal with the absurdities of being a 21st Century policeman on a daily basis, so it won't get sent today.

So, as they say in France, "Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change", or, as they say in the Dark Satanic Mill, "SOS, same old sh*t".

Jester, Jasper and the Slight Mistake

2007-06-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

I post this blog on two sites: this one and Wordpress (it's nice to reach as large an audience as possible). I had a comment left on the other site a day or two ago from a blogger whom I consider to be one of the best, Inspector Gadget. This left me dancing round my house in a state of euphoria yesterday singing "Inspector Gadget commented me, Inspector Gadget commented me". I didn't realise he even read my tales. It has had another effect though. I've finally been dragged up from the doldrums and finally I feel up to writing a blog again.

Inspector Gadget was interested to know how I/we stay sane. Well, obviously my mental state is not so delicate that I ever get pushed over the edge into true insanity (although many of my fellow jesters would say I fell over the edge many years ago) but I can state with absolute conviction that if I were ever in any danger, having my colleagues around me would hold me back.

We have a wonderful mix of people on our department. We have WASPs, and I must include heterosexuals in this category; we have a sub-group - a couple of born again Christians; we have gay men, a lesbian, a couple who claim to be bi-sexual; we have a number of Asian Muslims; we have catholics (and yes, I'm sorry, you were an afterthought). I can safely say that I get on with every single one of them. My Asian Muslim lady colleagues have delighted because they have exploded so many of my misconceptions about them. I'm afraid I always assumed them to be very serious indeed and when it comes to sex, at best shy and at worst prudish. Not so, they can laugh with the rest of us at jokes and like drains at a dirty joke. And that is just a few of my colleagues. They range from pleasant to abso-blooming-lutely wonderful.

Across the way from me sits Goodwill Jasper, a gay, Northern Irish Protestant from Londonderry (yes, I would tend to drop the London bit, descended from Southern Irish Catholics as I am). We have a number of names for him. I've called him the gay Ian Paisley, Mr Grumpy calls him Dolly (don't ask!), Jasper likes to call himself "Hot Rod Sex God". He is one of the funniest people I know. Jasper"drags up" and actually makes a very attractive woman and almost indistinguishable from the real thing (I was fooled myself, the first time I saw him in drag). His drag name is Lin, short for Linoleum "because I spend all my time on my back and I've seen more ceilings than Michelangelo". This is one of the many things he says that have me in stitches. Most, admittedly are too crude for this blog but another is "I like my men like I like my coffee: hot, strong and sweet, like Terico..." Actually, he quite often sings this.

Jasper belongs to a website, available only through his phone company. There, you can post a link with pictures and people will contact you. Jasper has stated quite categorically that he is a gay man, so there is no mistake and his pictures are supposed to be posted in the section for gay men. Recently, he posted a picture on the site. I've seen it and, admittedly, it is hard to tell what gender he is in the picture. The site posted it on the section for women, straight women (Jasper won't mind me using the word straight; he's not too bothered about Political Correctness. Just don't be rude and mean it). This was about 9 o'clock in the morning. By Lunch, he had about 30 messages, mainly from heterosexual men but one from a lesbian. I think they all thought he was a "hot chick". Lin had finally become real. He had to reply to them all and explain the mistake. When he finished work, there had been another 90 or so, including replies to his replies to earlier messages. I think he spent the whole evening explaining the mistake to myriad heterosexual men, some of them no longer so certain about their sexuality.

I found it hilarious and, needless to say, yet another potential lapse into insanity was averted.

So finally, Inspector Gadget, how do you manage to stay sane? I'm married to a Police Constable of 21 years' standing and I don't know how he manages it. He doesn't know either, although I do know that he has decent colleagues who think in the same way as him and are able to convince him that it is the machine that is wrong, not him. I'm lucky to be a Jester. I wouldn't swap my cap and bells for truncheon, handcuffs and CS Spray....ever!

Jessica, Magicians and X-Ray Vision

2007-05-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. Goodwill Jester has been very gloomy recently. One would have hoped that things would have improved since my last post but they have in fact gone from bad to worse. I work in a small team of high level jesters dealing with high level complaints. Our numbers have been badly depleted over the past few weeks but the amount of work we are dealing with appears to be increasing exponentially. On Monday, I was alone and for a while I was doing the work of 4 people. Our managers drafted in some help but it was still very difficult. Things improved on Tuesday when Goodwill Jessica was in and today Jessica and another high level jester, Goodwill Jackie, were in but we're swimming against the tide at the moment. I spent the entire day getting evidence for our in-house solicitor to use in two upcoming court cases. So I'm very, very stressed indeed. That is why I have not been blogging.

On a lighter note, a week or so ago Jessica showed me an invoice that one of our customers had sent in. It cheered me up briefly and it is time I shared it with others.

The scenario, very briefly, was that our customer had been told he had a blockage in the system, presumably the central heating system. This would not be covered by the policy (like all good insurance companies, we have exclusions and invoke them at every opportunity). The customer was advised to get his own plumber out to find and remove the blockage. The plumber attended. I have no idea what he did but he filled out his job sheet as follows (and I quote it verbatim with a couple of omissions to preserve anonymity):

Blockage in system diagnosed by [The Dark Satanic Mill]. Customer told by ... office that I can tell where blockage is and rectify.

I am not a magician or have the facility of X-Ray vision.

It's lovely that humour is not dead but the really wonderful thing about this is that the plumber could spell - marvellous!

Jester, Jessica, Pennywise and the Proverbial

2007-04-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

This jester is usually a fairly cheerful kind of a person. I'm always ready with a joke, I frequently have a smile on my face and not always an ironic one either. I'm a friendly kind of a jester and get on well with most of my colleagues, our contractors and not infrequently my customers. I usually like to laugh at the absurdities that face me at work but last week was so, so different.

I was, to be perfectly frank, stressed and when I'm stressed I am not a nice person. The cause of my stress was off all last week, having taken a week's emergency leave. He (or Pennywise as I now call him, since he is a clown) has left me and my fellow "high-level" jesters to pick up the pieces because, it would appear, he has not been doing his job properly. Now, I'm not talking about the odd mistake. We all make them and I am no exception. I'm also not talking about failing to do something we had promised to do. Again, we all run out of time sometimes and have to put off something that is very, very important indeed. What I am talking about appears to be either gross incompetence or unbelievable laziness.

For instance, I have had to completely rewrite one of his final response letters and it took a large chunk of Wednesday because he had investigated the complaint so badly that I pretty well had to start from scratch. To make things worse, it was extremely urgent, mainly because it had to go to the customer's water company first for checking. It also transpired that this particular complaint had almost caused him a huge amount of trouble a few months ago when he e-mailed another letter (to the customer) to our head office for forwarding to the water company for approval and it had contained the words "I refer to your verbal diatribe..." This had not gone down well with the water company or our head office and he only just got away with it by claiming that somebody else had doctored his letter before he sent the e-mail unchecked. We all knew that was utter clap-trap. The wording had Pennywise written all over it.

On Thursday, I was asked to ring another person at our head office, an account manager, which meant that the complaint I would be dealing with was very sensitive. He just wanted to check that a cheque had been sent to a VIP customer on Monday, as promised. We have VIP customers and when we input their details onto our computer systems, alarm bells ring and red lights flash so that there is no doubt whatsoever that they need to be treated with caution. They are usually managing directors of water, gas or electricity companies or work for national newspapers or in television. I assume that if Tony Blair had a policy, he would be a VIP customer.

This one was a managing director of a water company. I said I would check and ring my colleague back. I checked into this and found Pennywise had been involved again. He had said that he would get the cheque to the VIP customer by Tuesday. The cheque would have to be raised manually on Monday so that it could be "expressed" and sent out special delivery to get there by Tuesday. He has been off since Monday and so no cheque has been raised or sent. He saw fit to e-mail us on Wednesday to ask us to do him a favour with another of his complaints. I deleted the e-mail unread I was so angry with him. Why couldn't he have done that with this cheque on Monday? I would have read the e-mail then; the proverbial was not hitting the fan at that point.

Well, I raised the cheque myself and it went out registered post on Friday. The gentleman in our head office to whom I had been speaking said that our manager will receive a complaint about Pennywise from his manager. More grist to the mill then.

On Friday, my good friend Goodwill Jessica, was asked to ring another of Pennywise's customers. This time, it was really serious. He had closed the complaint without contacting the customer and had put notes on the system that were out and out lies. She had to face a 15 minute barrage from the customer, who was furious. Jessica in her turn was furious and when he comes back to work (if he dares), Pennywise is going to have an uncomfortable time of it. We genuinely want him off our team (the Complex Jesters) because we have been carrying him for so long and this week has been murder for us all.

Before I went home on Friday, I found out that another customer had rung in and his complaint had also been closed with no action, although Pennywise's notes suggested otherwise. Again, the poor jester came in for some major ear-bashing and when he came over to ask Jessica what to do, she pointed him in the direction of Pennywise's manager.

There have been other instances too, like the letter from a County Court that was handed to him and has not been seen since (we found the missing cheque request form when we were looking for that). Jessica had to ring the court and ask them to re-send it. They were not impressed but then again, they could not possibly have been as unimpressed as we were.

Normally, I would not drop my colleagues in it. It is against the Jester's code but I have to make an exception in this case and I have documented every mistake, every instance of incompetence and laziness that I have come across this week. It has to be done. Pennywise has made my life and Jessica's and the two other Complex Jesters' lives misery this week. I have not been so stressed for ages and I don't intend to ever let this happen again.

I am a very angry jester indeed and I hope I can keep it up when he comes back to work because I think time, I really need to be.

Jester, Mr Krabs, the Non-Payer and the Marching Band

2007-04-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

I would like to start this blog with a disclaimer. I cannot vouch for the veracity of what is to follow because the source of this story has a vivid imagination and likes to tell tall stories. Still, some of them must be true. As usual, I have changed names to protect identities.

First of all, let me introduce you to Mr Krabs. Mr Krabs or Eugene, as I prefer to call him, is one of the Dark Satanic Mill's approved contractors or, to be more precise, the proprietor or managing director of said approved contractor. Mr Krabs' company, Praxis Development, is a large building company in an affluent part of the country and takes a large amount of work from the Dark Satanic Mill.

I call him Mr Krabs because his apparent love, nay obsession, with money reminds me so much of the lovable character from Spongebob Squarepants. I can imagine him diving down a blocked toilet to retrieve a pound coin or tucking five pound notes into little beds at night and kissing them goodnight.

Eugene often tries to tell me that he is poverty stricken and his kids (I didn't know he had any) are starving (he can't afford to buy them krabby patties) and have no shoes to wear because the Dark Satanic Mill does not pay his invoices on time. My stock answer is "speak to Finance or your Area Network Manager". My job, after all, is to pay customers, not contractors. Anyway, I know that's not the case because, as I said before, his company is based in one of the most affluent parts of the country and the Dark Satanic Mill passes a huge amount of work to him.

Eugene and I get on really very well. He has very little time for most of my colleagues but seems to like me well enough. We have built up this relationship of mutual contempt. I call him Mr Krabs to his face and laugh at him openly. He recently called me a witch and said he could tell me where to shove my broomstick. I told him it was already up there. He tries to run rings round me and frequently succeeds. A couple of weeks ago, I got him to admit over the phone that he had made a mistake and I'm still dancing round the office, whooping and punching the air.

So that's Eugene Krabs and I hope he likes my description of him because he knows how to get to this blog. Well, on Wednesday he told me a story that I simply could not keep to myself. I told him it was too good not to blog about it and e-mailed him the url for this site. He had no objection to me putting this online so here is Eugene's little tale.

As I said before, Praxis Development is based in a very affluent part of the country. What I did not say is that this part of the country, according to Eugene anyway, is mainly populated by rich and famous pop and rock stars. There may be some footballers too and others who have earned vast amounts of money by doing unimportant jobs and sometimes not that well and I'm sure Eugene will have mentioned them.

Praxis had done a major redecoration job on a house in this area. This was an insurance job (but not a Dark Satanic Mill job, I hasten to add) and so Eugene was prepared to wait for the customer to get the settlement cheque before receiving payment from him. The amount owed was, I think, £20,000. That seems a lot to an insignificant jester like me but when you consider that most of the properties in the area go for millions, maybe it is only to be expected. So Eugene submitted his invoice and waited for the money.

He did not get paid. The customer rented out the house and moved to London and cashed the cheque. This caused Eugene an inordinate amount of heartache but being a resourceful little crab he hatched a cunning plan to get his money from the by now absent customer.

Eugene told me that this customer (or his tenants) had some very famous neighbours. There was a famous rock/indie star from the nineties, who has an equally famous brother, who lived next door I believe. Then there was the multi instrumentalist who is well remembered from the seventies. I think he was over the road. A few doors down was a former exponent of girl power and a little further down the road was a pop star who had been an extremely successful chart act in the seventies. All musicians.

Eugene's revenge was swift and appropriate. He found some other, less well known "musicians" and kitted them out with a bass drum, a trumpet, a tambourine and a banner saying "non-payer" and sent them to the house. The drummer banged his bass drum, the tambourine player banged or shook his tambourine and the trumpeter played his trumpet...

badly.

After about five minutes the multi instrumentalist's housekeeper came out of the house and asked them to keep it down. The drummer rang Eugene and asked what he should do. Eugene told them to play louder.

Within half an hour the non-payer's tenants had contacted the non-payer, the non-payer had contacted Eugene and apologised for the "mistake" and had transferred all of the money by banker's draft into Praxis' bank account. Eugene called the musicians off.

As I said before, I'm not sure I believe him but I hope Eugene is telling the truth. The story is definitely too good to keep to myself and I do have to say that it is people like Eugene who bring a little light into this jester's working life and make my job so enjoyable.

Jester and Meetings (The Practical Alternative to Work)

2007-04-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday my fellow jesters and I all received an e-mail announcing a Team Meeting, which was to take place the next day. We were to be split into two groups and one half of us would go to a meeting at 10am and the other at 11am. Of course, our Task Masters, I mean Managers, would get to go to both meetings. That was all: there was no agenda, just a meeting. One of my colleagues, a very dear friend but a very grumpy jester, Mr Grumpy, replied to the e-mail asking if there was an agenda but our Managers like to keep us in suspense so it would be a nice surprise for us and did not reply.

I was in the 11am meeting with Mr Grumpy so I knew it would be an enjoyable experience. I like meetings anyway. There is an e-mail that makes the rounds every now and again that sums meetings up very nicely for me.

When I'm in a meeting, I don't have to speak to angry customers, I don't have to compile boring complaint summaries and I don't have to check my epistoliphobic colleagues' letters. They really are the practical alternative to work.

The first group over-ran by about 10 minutes and when they emerged I went into the meeting with the second group armed with a pencil and note pad. I had already drawn a noughts and crosses grid on the page as a post-modern ironic gesture. Unfortunately, it went completely un-noticed. I sat next to Mr Grumpy and prepared to be alternatively annoyed and bored for the next hour.

There were four items on the agenda (so there was an agenda then, after all): Sensitive Clients, our current high volumes of complaints, Letters and that old Chestnut, PDRs.

The first, sensitive clients (or as I prefer to call them, demanding clients), is a source of much amusement to me. We sell products on behalf of various water companies, electricity and gas suppliers and other insurers. We are a specialist in home emergency insurance. I have sometimes wondered if there is a direct correlation between how demanding our clients are (water companies, electricity and gas suppliers and other insurers) and how poor their service to their customers is. I've only wondered but I suspect there is.

Our most demanding client supplies me with my gas and electricity, at least I pay my bills to them. They expect us to investigate, deal with and close complaints within 10 working days. That is risible when frequently we have to wait for the customers to send in invoices, reports, photographs or if the claim is still ongoing or if the customer is unavailable; sometimes the list of reasons can seem endless. Many of our complaints reach the trigger point of 40 days (when the customer can then refer his/her complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service) through no fault of our own. Not all complaints can be resolved with an apology and small goodwill gesture, especially now our society is getting as compensation-obsessed and litigious as our American Cousins.

Next on the agenda were the extraordinarily high volumes of complaints we are receiving. There are a number of very good reasons for this. The main one being that our colleagues in our Admin Department/Head Office want to sell more policies to make the company look better in the back end of the financial year and make the share prices increase. They have decided to sell these policies by making more Quality Control calls to our customers who have recently made claims. They can then sell policies to customers who have received good service. The other side of the coin, of course, is that more complaints are generated and we have to work harder. We have also introduced FSA training designed to make our call-centre staff better aware of what exactly is a complaint. They're now logging more and we are having to work harder. Actually, I have no objection to extra complaints being generated this way. It shows that our call centre colleagues are doing their jobs better. I just wish that our company would recruit more Goodwill Jesters to enable us to cope better.

Then there were the letters. I mentioned in a previous blog that most of my colleagues are epistoliphobic (a word I made up with the help of an online English/Greek dictionary). I was not wrong. There have been major ructions about the number of letters we now have to send, mostly from Mr Grumpy but many other jesters are also very unhappy with this. The major effect this has had on our department is that we are working more slowly and closing fewer complaints.

The extra letters were introduced on the back of an audit of our Sales Department carried out by Price Waterhouse Coopers at our Head Office, which was to ensure that we were FSA compliant before an FSA audit is carried out in July. I believe that the conclusions were less than complimentary. I also believe that our company, and the new practices came from the top directors, over-reacted to the audit, so we are now having to be super-compliant.

I actually am quite prepared to be super-compliant. I have already realised through my dealings as a complainer that the company I work for, or at least its complaints department, is very customer-friendly. I wish it were a little more employee friendly, that's all. I would prefer it, though, if our department could be enlarged to take account of the extra work we now have to do. Oh and our targets should be reduced to reflect it as well. Some help from the IT department in automatically filling in customer names and addresses in the letters would also be of assistance. One little help is to become available: our company is going to offer touch-typing courses to all jesters if they want to learn. This jester is proud to announce that she can already touch-type!

The irony of it is, the vast majority of our complaints are not FSA reportable, so, in theory at least, we do not have to be compliant. However, our head office expects us to mirror them and so we have to achieve the same high levels of FSA Compliance that they do.

The final agenda item was our PDRs (Performance and Development Reviews or "Do I get a pay rise and bonus or not?"). This has been a major concern to all the jesters over the years because we never get out PDRs on time. I suppose this is because winter is our busiest time of year and our Managers' workload tends to reflect ours. We have not had our monthly appraisals for many months (I have not had one since my half-year review) and so we have not been given any indication of how well or badly we have been performing. This year appears to be no exception. Apparently, they have drafted our PDRs but they are going to e-mail them to us in advance so that we can pre-approve them. It seems a bit strange to me but if it means I get a fair PDR on time, I'll go for it.

It seems that some things at the Dark Satanic Mill never change.

Jester, The Fat Controller and Plodding

2007-04-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

The Fat Controller aka Mad Eye Moody continues to make himself unpopular. About 10 of our Jesters have migrated upstairs to the main call centre to make room for the returning prodigals (see Mad Eye Moody, Jessina and Letting off Steam) and they are now under his watchful eyes and ears.

One of my younger colleagues, Goodwill Gary, came downstairs on Wednesday in a fit of Pique. The Fat Controller had overheard one of his comments and had complained to our senior manager. She had reported this back to Gary and it had roused his ire. Gary has a unique turn of phrase for one so young (he reminds me of a young Fred Dibnah). We're all used to it and we are able to translate what he says into Modern English, so when he says something like "I'll plod on with my list", we think "Gary's finished doing what he was doing and is now going to work on his list of complaints". The word plod has no special meaning for us. It has no connotations of slowness because we know him.

The Fat Controller's eagle ears (no, that's not right, it's eagle eyes), sorry, his bat ears or bird ears or even rabbit ears (I have been reliably informed that all the aforementioned animals have excellent hearing) picked up the word "plod" and, being a Christian and therefore the kind of man only to see the best in others, immediately assumed that Gary does not take his work seriously. He swiftly e-mailed our manager and she felt duty bound to pass on his concerns to Gary.

Gary was furious and came downstairs to let off steam. I told him to sit next to me (my neighbour was off for the day) and I went through it with him:

Jester: "Does the Fat Controller's opinion matter?"
Gary: "To some people, yes."
Jester: "Does it matter to people you respect?"
Gary: (thinking) "Ummm..."
Jester: "Does it matter to me for instance?"
Gary: (smiling) "No!"
Jester: "Don't let him get you down. He is really, really unimportant in the general scheme of things. How can you worry about someone who looks like a Sontaran?"
Gary: "?"
Jester: "You don't know what a Sontaran is?"
Gary: "No."
Jester: "Right. I'll e-mail you a picture for reference"

The next day, I sent Gary an e-mail with three pictures attached - one of a Sontaran, a picture of the Fat Controller that we had tampered with at home, making him even uglier than before and one of me at 17 when I was a very skinny punk. I was on the phone to him when he opened the attachments (The FC was downstairs at the time) and I heard the screams of laughter from him and his fellow exiles. Here is one of the pictures. I am not showing my picture because this is an anonymous work blog and I'm not showing the picture of the Fat Controller for the same reason. However, he does bear a striking resemblance to a Sontaran...

Jester, Retirement, Insults and Blogging

2007-04-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

This particular Goodwill Jester has been particularly quiet of late. There have been a number of reasons for this but the main one, and it is the most important by far, is that my younger daughter is suffering from Henoch-Schonlein Purpura. It started as a slight rash on her calves and a pain in the ankle in Mid March and has developed into a magnificent purpuric rash, swollen and painful joints, stomach aches and most worryingly, problems with her kidneys. She was in hospital for four days at the end of March and so, not surprisingly, work has not been my primary concern recently.

However, she is on the mend now, although it is a slow process, and she will have to attend the renal clinic as an outpatient for some time, but work continues to throw up the same absurdities, irritations and entertainments which are a rich seam for blogging. I was not in the mood before but as she gets better I feel the urge to blog again.

So...

Last Friday was a sad day in the Dark Satanic Mill because one of our most senior jesters retired. When we presented her with her leaving present, which included a mobile phone, there was not a dry eye in the department. The Fat Controller even allowed her to go home early (no doubt docking the missed hours from her pay!) In the evening, we had a combined Retirement/Birthday party for her in a city centre restaurant. I am going to miss her very much. She was a good friend to me.

On a lighter note, we have recently had dealings with a particularly abusive customer. I have to admit that this sort of customer can be delightfully entertaining. She does have cause to complain but her method of complaining is probably the most ill-advised method anybody could use. I first heard about her yesterday morning when our managers were discussing her. She had rung the previous evening and had spoken to one of my fellow jesters, Goodwill Jerry. She had screamed so loudly down the phone that our senior manager, who sits some distance from us (so we cannot distract her from her work), could hear her. When Jerry suggested that they may achieve more if she were not to shout at him and personally insult him, she hung up.

She rang back shortly afterwards and spoke to another colleague. She gave him a false name and refused to give any other details. When he pressed her, citing the Data Protection Act (all customers should confirm the first line of the address, so that we know they are the genuine article), she told him to f*** off and hung up again. She also insulted other people in other departments during the evening (mainly managers) and in the morning I was asked to telephone her.

I rang but I was diverted to her answerphone - a lucky escape as it transpired. I left a message asking her to ring me back. I also said I would ring again in about an hour's time. I then went on my break and when I got back she had rung back and spoken to another of my colleagues, Goodwill Jessica. She told Jessica that she did not want to speak to me because I am not a manager. Nor did she want to speak to Jessica for the same reason. She then went on to say that Jerry had screamed down the phone at her like a demented woman on her period, which just goes to show that Jerry has no balls and is therefore a gay boy. Jessica arranged for one of our managers to ring her back. When she did, our demented customer told her to f*** off as well. Our manager is now putting our response in writing to her.

I firmly believe that there comes a point when a customer loses the right to complain and certainly loses the right to receive any financial compensation in respect of a complaint whether justified or not. I know she passed that point when she spoke to Jessica and I suspect she passed it the previous evening. Never mind though, we had great fun in telling Jerry she had got his number. All good fun in the Dark Satanic Mill, after all.

Jester, Facilitators and Letter Writing

2007-03-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Today I saw Jay at work. Jay, the subject of my first Goodwill Jester blog, Jay, the resource planner and the disciplinary, has been off with stress and it was good to see him today. It was his sad tale that inspired me to start blogging about work. Well, I don't have any more news about him, so I cannot say if his ordeal is over. The Dark Satanic Mill is taking far too long to put the poor fellow out of his misery but please be assured that as soon as I have any news, my readers will be the first to hear it.

There were also more rumblings of discontent in the complaints department today when new, more FSA-compliant, working methods were introduced. The main consequence of this is that the number of letters we have to send out appears to have increased exponentially. This is not a problem for Jester, who loves writing letters, but many of my colleagues are feeling mutinous about it.

We were trained on the more FSA-friendly (and less jester-friendly) working methods last week. I did my training on Thursday and I immediately noticed an interesting change. We no longer had a trainer but a facilitator. Being the facetious kind of person I am, the first question I asked was, "Why use five syllables when two will do?" I received nine blank stares so I explained: "Fa-ci-li-ta-tor has five syllables. Trai-ner has two." The poor lass who was training us - I mean facilitating us - explained that she is facilitating us and not training us. I later learned from my husband (a policeman and therefore familiar with all things Newspeak) that being trained is very passive and therefore passé. Facilitation is the way forward because our knowledge is facilitated. That is not passive at all. Big Brother would have been proud.

In the morning we did the training, sorry, facilitating that our colleagues in the Call Centre will do. This is designed to generate fewer complaints (putting us in the Complaints Department out of a job, hopefully) but also to ensure that when they are generated, they are logged correctly and in a timely fashion. It was great fun.

We had a "Can say/can't say" session, where I found out that I cannot say: "If you would just let me explain..." or "You should read your policy, Mr So and So..." or "I know you're angry but..." So it appears we can still tell customers to get stuffed. Good.

We then discussed the three different types of customer: passive, aggressive and assertive. We were facilitated in saying that the easiest type to deal with is an assertive customer. I love such simplifications. I know I'm a combination of all three and how I behave is largely a matter of what mood I am in. What is more, when I'm being assertive, I am probably about as difficult as it gets.

We then moved on to "What is a complaint/what isn't a complaint". We had to tick complaints and leave non-complaints blank. Again, simple and great fun.

The afternoon was given over to specific training for complaints handlers. This was the bit we had been warned about and had caused so much rumbling from people who had been facilitated on the two previous days. We went through all the letters we are now going to have to send to our customers and when we are going to have to send them. If we don't want to do it, we will have to close all our complaints at 0 - 2 days old. That is a daunting prospect for all my fellow jesters.

We finished our training at about 4.30pm after a short test (in which I got 100%, thus winning myself an easter egg today) and I left the training room (or should that be facilitation suite) with a nice new note-pad and a spring in my step. I love writing letters.

Today, I helped a few of my epistoliphobic* colleagues with their letters, a welcome relief from speaking to angry customers. I might even have to write a few myself. I'm really looking forward to it.

*Unfortunately, the website I used to identify this phobia did not list it so I made it up with the help of an Online Greek/English dictionary. Other interesting phobias include Thygateraphobia, Paraponophobia and my favourite of all, Choratatzisphobia.

Jester, Blogging and Jay

2007-03-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog (inspired by the plight of my friend Jay), I thought that I would have plenty of material to blog about. I was not wrong and material comes from all directions where I work. So I have blogged about my colleagues, our equipment and occasionally our contractors. I also blogged about something completely non-work related in my last two outings but I've decided to come back to the place where I feel most comfortable, the Dark Satanic Mill.

First of all, though, Jay. He has still not been told the upshot of his disciplinary hearing and unfortunately, the cracks are beginning to show. He's now off work with stress and I'm missing him. Jay is gay; he's as camp as a row of tents and I love him to pieces. I have always got on well with gay men. Maybe it's because we can leer at the same people or maybe there is a deeper, psychological reason. I don't know, I just know I get on with them. Jay is also somebody I can talk to and I can tell him anything, which is great. So I'm missing him and I wish that they would sort this all out soon so he can come back to work and we can resume our conspiratorial little chats. I did check on the Internet to see if the Satanic Mill has a time frame in which to make a decision but, as far as I am aware, now the wheels are in motion, they can keep turning as long as the company sees fit. I will keep you updated as and when anything happens.

Read and Weep Part 2

2007-03-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

I posted yesterday's blog in the short time I had before leaving for work and I don't think I did my subject full justice.

I said that in nearly 21 years of being a copper, my husband has sustained no more than a few bruises. That is not strictly true. He can boast no more than a few bruises in terms of physical injury and I think he is lucky in that respect but police work has taken a more insidious toll on him.

21 years of those shifts for instance. He's now on a 5 week rota - Okay, I did my best but I was not able to put it on this blog in a legible form so I've given up. It's nights followed by earlies, followed by nights, followed by afternoons followed by, you guessed it, nights.

I never know whether he's coming or going so how on earth can he know? His body clock is messed up, his digestion is shot to pieces, he can't sleep - his body no longer knows when it's supposed to sleep.

He is now suffering from high blood pressure. Okay, I know the smoking and drinking (I wonder how many policemen have a drink problem?) and his weight don't help but I think those are also attributable to the pressures that he is put under every day.

Lastly, the depression. He probably won't thank me for mentioning it but I don't think he reads my blogs. Okay, he's never been a particularly happy go lucky sort of a man. I was attracted to his intensity when I first knew him and also a little alarmed at what I thought was his nihilism but this has got worse and significantly so since being in the job.

PC Copperfield and Inspector Gadget will explain far better than me the idiotic procedures, the bosses from hell, the bureaucracy, the idiotic members of the public a policeman encounters in the job. All I can say is my husband finds it all very depressing and his job satisfaction has to be nil or very close to it.

One thing I will say though is that he has worked with some of the most amazing people over the years. I've been privileged to meet a few of them and for a while they had a fantastic team working together from their particular Nick. Of course a forward thinking and energetic Chief Inspector or something similar decided to split them up over the Division a couple of years ago. Bloody typical.

Read and Weep

2007-03-07T23:45:00.000-08:00

I was just adding a few more interesting blogs on another of my blogsites and I have just read three of the most depressing blogs ever. All on the same subject. They can be found in Police Inspector Blog, The Policeman's Blog and Mr Chalk. Here are the links to them:

Police Inspector Blog
The Policeman's Blog
Mr Chalk

I am married to a policeman myself and I know what a dangerous job it can be. I'm lucky because in nearly 21 years in the job he has sustained no more than a couple of bruises. This young man's life is over at 21 years of age and the thugs who put him in this state will be out of prison in a few years' time. It sickens me. Read and Weep.

Mad Eye Moody, Jessina and Letting off Steam

2007-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

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.

A Jester, Shoes and the Fat Controller

2007-03-02T14:04:00.000-08:00

There was outrage amongst some of my fellow Jesters a couple of days ago. I would have mentioned this yesterday but I was on an 11am - 8pm shift and when I got home last night, I was too tired to even contemplate going on the computer. I went to bed instead.

I think a little background would be useful here. Our department, the Complaints Department, has grown quite a lot over the past few years. There used to be five or six of us at one time and now there are 40 odd Complaints Handlers. This means that we have outgrown our part of the office and so we have sprouted offshoots. Up until today, there was a small group of us away from the main area but still on the same floor and another upstairs sharing space with other departments. I have been sitting in what I humorously call "the leper colony" downstairs. There is always a little bit of banter going on in our little offshoot. The people upstairs probably keep their heads down a little bit more and get on with their work a little bit more.

Unfortunately for them, they are under the eye of our Customer Services Director, also known as Mad Eye W- or the Fat Controller. Now I have very little time for this man. He likes to come across as a bluff sort of man, a bit of a man of the people. However, he is a moral coward and a back-stabber and he looks unpleasantly like a cross between John Prescott, a Sontaran, Kryten and Mad Eye Moody.

I had my first run-in with him a couple of years ago when he took objection to me getting coffee from our staff canteen during work time - i.e. not in my break time. I wouldn't have minded if he had told me himself but he got a junior colleague of mine to do it. He started as he meant to go on and to my knowledge has never tackled anybody himself about perceived misdemeanours but has instead e-mailed their managers or, if a manager cannot be found (as in my case), then a colleague. I make a point of avoiding him at all costs. I will not make eye contact with him or say a word to him. Petty, I know, but I cannot stand the man.

Anyway, apparently, one of our Jesters upstairs was talking enthusiastically about some new shoes she had just acquired and he noticed (her talking, not the shoes). He told one of our managers about this (ironically, the same junior colleague who told me not to get coffee in company time a couple of years ago - she has since been promoted), who immediately went upstairs and, if I'm not mistaken, told the whole group that the Fat Controller thought they were all a waste of space.

This inspired great wrath and one of the girls immediately spoke to our managers' manager (we have a complicated hierarchy in the Dark Satanic Mill) and said that if it was not "sorted out" she would put in a grievance against the FC. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, they were told that he had taken exception to just one of them (the shoe enthusiast), he had not said that they were all a waste of space and they did not need worry.

This leaves a bad taste in the mouth for us all. Yet again, he lacked the moral courage to go over and tell the Jester in question to shut up about shoes and get on with her work. It also begs the question, what exactly did he say to our manager? If he did not refer to them as all a waste of space, then surely she has behaved in an extremely unprofessional manner.

One last point. I have already written about this particular manager. She is the one I accused of being a bully in a previous blog, Jester, Jeannie and the Missing Post. Her rise through the ranks was rapid after the FC noticed her and he couldn't fail to notice her. We were without a manager at the time and she took over some of the administration tasks, as did Goodwill Jester and some other members of the department. However, she did this very noisily and with great fanfare and so she was noticed. She leap-frogged one of the grades in our department at her next PDR and when the Dark Satanic Mill advertised for Trainee Team Managers, he encouraged her to apply and sponsored her application. She "graduated" and is now a manager in our department. I have not been particularly impressed with her managerial skills so far and therefore, by extension, with him as a judge of good manager material.

Jester, Jennifer and Maternity Rights: A Postscript

2007-02-24T02:47:00.000-08:00

I just thought I would like to update my readers (all 2 of them - thanks Gareth and Charlie) on an issue I covered a week or so ago. Goodwill Jenny had a meeting with HR and our Customer Service Manager on Wednesday to discuss changing her shift pattern. She had already been allowed to leave work an hour early on the Monday to ensure her young daughter got to bed on time and she left the meeting feeling optimistic. On Wednesday evening, she went home at her usual time (her fiancé is at home on Wednesdays and their daughter is usually a good girl for him). The little minx poked her head round the door to check her Mum had got home but there were no problems putting her to bed. On Friday she was told that she could change her shift pattern and when she passed the news onto me you should have seen her little face! So all's well that ends well. I just wish they could have done this back in November.

She starts her maternity leave in four weeks and our managers have finally asked her to train other Admin staff on her duties. I know that we are going to miss her. She is a very capable young woman and accomplishes a great deal in the time she's at work. She is also very determined and has a strong will, which she needs in her job because of the many little squabbles with the Complaints Department at our sister company over which side should deal with which complaints. I get the feeling our side is going to be lumbered with more complaints than we should be after she leaves. Well, only time will tell.

Jester and the Jokes

2007-02-21T23:00:00.000-08:00

A long time ago a grizzled and wise old policeman announced to a group of his colleagues: "The problem here is too many people treat this joke as a job." Actually, it was a few years ago, my husband was present and the policeman in question is not much older than my husband and not at all grizzled but the saying is continually springing to my mind at the moment.

I may have mentioned it once or twice: I work in a complaints department. The emphasis is on closing complaints by phone - it's quicker and adds the personal touch. However, we are unable to force our customers to make complaints by phone, they do frequently insist on writing in and we often have to respond in writing, although we prefer not to.

All of their letters are scanned onto our computer system and there is a useful little window where you can see the scanned image of the letter. There is an even more useful button in the window with a picture of a printer on it, which you can use to print off the images so you can read the letter and scribble notes on it. This is great when it works but at the moment it doesn't. Well, it does for a few. Well, part of it does for a few and all it does for even fewer.

On Tuesday and yesterday, I was one of the few people - about 5 or 6 - in the department (we number about 40 people at present) who could see the images. I was also one of the elite who could see the images and had the computer hooked up to a printer that works. We have three printers in the department; all Science Museum material: two of them work but only one of them is reliable. So I was very popular indeed.

Yesterday, they took one of our servers down for maintenance. I logged onto one of the other 3. Well, on the third attempt I did, anyway, and I could now no longer view images. I can still print, so I can write letters but I can't see my customers' letters. Oh and I can't attach my own letters to the complaint log. It transpires that view customers' letters and attaching ours run off the same piece of faulty software. We have to attach our letters to be FSA compliant.

So we, temporarily at least, had a complaints department where we were unable to see our customers' letters or, in the majority of cases, print our own. Which brings me back to the grizzled old policeman. I really do have to agree with him when it comes to the Dark Satanic Mill: Too many people treat this joke as a job.

One last laugh. Our hardware may date from ante-diluvian times and our software may be rubbish but at least we don't the laughable computer systems my husband has to work with. Yet again, the police beats the insurance industry to first place in the god-awful employers stakes.

Jester, Jeannie and the Missing Post

2007-02-18T01:27:00.000-08:00

I said in my last post that there have been rumblings of discontent at the Dark Satanic Mill over two issues and covered the first in that blog. The second issue is one that I find very disturbing because it involves the bullying of a young team member by one of our managers.

I think it would be a good idea to give a little background here. The manager in question, Fran, has been promoted from the ranks as it were. A couple of years ago, she was a level 1 complaints handler and our department was having a crisis. Our manager had gone off sick with stress because he had been expected to deal with an unreasonable workload and when he had been unable to cope, instead of receiving support, he just got more hassle from his bosses. We were then, as I used to enjoy saying, rudderless.

This girl took over some of the administrative tasks because somebody needed to do them. She also made a great fuss about doing it in a "Hey! Look at me!" sort of a way. Other members of the team, including yours truly, carried on with our work and took on some extra responsibilities so they would get done but did not make a big fuss about it.

This girl came to the notice of the Fat Controller, our Customer Services Director, and he liked her style. Suddenly, she was surrounded by grateful directors, praising her for running the department single-handed, and was even given a Gold Award for Achievement, a very rare honour indeed.

At her next Performance Development Review, she leap-frogged Level 2 handler to Level 3 and her star was now clearly in the ascendant. She had previously applied for Trainee Team Manager but had been rejected because she was too aggressive. Now the Fat Controller asked her to apply again and this time she sailed through the application process and then the training period.

She is now a manager in our department and I really hate to say this because I like her as a person but she is not a good manager at all. She is aggressive in her dealings with her staff, too many of her decisions about complaints do not make any sense and it seems that her knowledge of some of our policies is pretty poor. Worst by far, though, is how she bullies weaker members of the team.

Which brings me to my present gripe. Her treatment of the daughter of my good friend and "adopted" little sister, Goodwill Jessica. Jessica's daughter, Jeannie, is only 17 and it is a marvellous achievement for her to get a job in our department when there must have been other candidates with more experience. It must have been a blinder of an application and interview. Now, please do not be cynical and say that she only got the job because she is Jessica's daughter. What kind of company do you think I work for?

Well, she got the job and she started work and what a lovely girl she is! Everybody loves her. She's a hard worker, pleasant company and just generally a nice kid. So why would anyone want to bully her? Because she doesn't work hard enough? But she does so much work and keeps her head down. She doesn't join in with the general gossip and chatter that goes on in our department, she just works. Unfortunately, her manager seems to think that she should be able to do more and do it faster and tells her off for not doing enough.

On Friday, the post for 14 February went missing and Jeannie was at the photocopier doing one of her myriad Admin tasks. Fran shouted from her desk for Jeannie to stop what she was doing immediately and go and look for it. That may not, on the face of it, seem too bad but in conjunction with everything else, the poor girl ended up in tears. If it wasn't where it was supposed to be, then where was it going to be and how was she going to find it?

The answer was simple, really. My friend, Jenny, e-mailed the whole department asking if anybody had removed it. When she got no response, she looked in the filing cabinet herself and found it, not far from where it should be, with the post for 15 February. It had been put back by some nameless member of the department in the wrong place. This begs the question. Surely the person who reported it missing could have done the same thing and found it and avoided all the heartache and who had put it in the wrong place anyway? My bet is that it was not a member of the Admin team.

I e-mailed the head of our department after that incident. I did not mention it specifically but just told her that I think too many people in our department undervalue our Admin Team and it would be nice for them to get some public recognition for the superb job they do. I blind-copied in Jenny, Jessica and Jeannie.

I hope they do get the recognition they deserve. It really is about time, after all. I also hope that Fran can improve her management skills. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

Jester, Jennifer and Maternity Rights

2007-02-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

There were more rumblings of discontent at the Dark Satanic Mill yesterday. This time over two issues. I love the word "issues"; we use it so much in our line of work - "We will feed back the issues you have raised to the appropriate manager..." You know, that sort of thing.

Well, these issues are very close to my heart because they involve a very good friend of mine and the daughter of another very good friend. They have both roused me from my usual apathy and driven me to act! Hopefully, my actions will help them out, if only a little.

Let's start with Goodwill Jennifer. She sits next to me at work. She covers a very awkward shift, 11am - 8pm, which is invaluable to our bosses and also to me and my co-workers because we only need work one of those shifts per week. Jenny is pregnant and she's blooming. She suits pregnancy so well but of course she is getting tired more easily and needs a little slack.

She gets none. She's our senior Admin girl and she has always been up to the workload but recently, due to sickness of some of our other Admin staff, her workload has increased. This is one of my bones of contention. She is pregnant and has RIGHTS. The other is that she has asked to change her shift to 10am - 7pm but with no result. She did this back in November but still nothing has been done. She keeps reminding our bosses but nothing, zilch, nada.

Things came to a head for her this week when her 2 year old daughter refused to go to bed before her mummy got home. Jenny doesn't get home until well after 8pm and her daughter needs to go to bed by 7pm or she will get over-tired and be extra cranky the next morning. So she raised the issue again and still got no joy.

I told her to go to HR and after a little bit of bullying, she did. They told her to fill in a form for Flexible Working Hours, which she did and I took it back up to HR for her. Suddenly, all the bosses wanted to help Jenny and they even told her that if she needs to leave work at 7pm on Monday, she can, even if the new hours have not yet been put in place. We are now certain that they will.

Now all we need to do is to persuade the bosses to cut her some slack with the workload. She only has 5 weeks left before her maternity leave and when she leaves it will be noticed. She does an enormous amount of work and who will be able to fill her shoes?

Jester and Jester Junior

2007-02-15T11:09:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to offer my sincere apologies to my daughter, whose blog I pimp shamelessly on this site (okay, I'm exaggerating, I have merely put a link to it from this site). It took me three attempts to get the name of her blog right. Obviously, I am not the mother of PC Copperfield, Mr Chalk or Inspector Gadget. I'd love to take the credit of being the parent of my friends at Prawn Cufflinks but I cannot. However, if you do get a spare minute, please click on the link for The Journal of a Complete Groover. It's quirky and lovely and I love reading about myself in it. I will also add other blogs of note to the list as I get around to it.

Jester, Delusions and Health Visitors

2007-02-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

I closed a complaint yesterday. Actually, I probably closed more than one but this one was significant. It had posed me a really difficult question. At what point does an untruth become a lie?

The point is, this particular customer has mental health problems and is delusional and I really did not know what to believe and what to disbelieve. Some of it was hard, proven fact. Like the damage caused to her property by our contractors. Some of it was in her head and not a matter of fact at all - she claims to be a psychological profiler for the police.

I honestly believe that she believed everything she told me but it made it so difficult for me to sift truth from delusion and therefore deal with her complaint. In the end, I gave up. We sorted out the physical damage, some of which may not have been caused by our contractors and I made a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience etc.

Well, this got me thinking yesterday. I was trying to work out if some of the claims she had made were based in fact. For instance, one where she said that the contractors had sneaked up to her door, pushed a card through and then legged it for the van and driven off at speed so they wouldn't need to go in and do any work.

I don't think that is normal behaviour for our engineers. They don't get paid as much if they don't go in the house and money is a ruling motive for us all. Then I remembered our Health Visitor from all those years ago. She used to do the same thing. We'd be pottering around the house and we'd hear the letterbox go. The card would be on the doormat saying she'd called but nobody had been at home. That brought a wave of nostalgia although why I should feel nostalgic about somebody who wanted nothing to do with me or my children, I don't know.

Well, to bring this pointless blog to an end. I plucked a figure out of the air and offered it to her as a gesture of goodwill. She asked me to increase it by a certain amount and I did, readily. The complaint is now closed but I do get the impression she will ring me again. I think she enjoyed our chats. I know I did and she's a lovely lady, delusional or not. She's going to send me some of her poems as a thankyou and I'm really looking forward to receiving them. I will treasure them for the rest of my life.

Oh and by the way. She wasn't lying. She believed every word she told me.

Jester, Gemma and Overtime Incentives

2007-02-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

There have been rumblings of discontent at the Dark Satanic Mill over the last couple of days. Perhaps I should be more specific and state that rumblings have broken out in the complaints department, of which I am proud to be a member.

December, January and February are very busy months for us and we always have higher levels of sickness absence at this time of the year that at others. This leaves us with ridiculous workloads, not enough staff and complaints getting older and older.

In time-honoured fashion, our directors have come up with a great idea to help us get over this annual hiccup in our performance: they pay us to come in and do overtime. Their first hurdle is the part-time staff. You do not become eligible for overtime rates until you have worked 40 hours in a week. When I was a part-timer, I would not work overtime because I did not want to give up my spare time for no extra reward.

They managed to get over that hurdle this year by agreeing to pay overtime rates to part-time staff who did overtime and thereby got me to agree to come in on a couple of my precious Saturdays. The workload did not decrease significantly so they needed us to work more overtime and so they agreed to pay double-time instead of the usual time and a half. One of our managers sent an e-mail to the department as a whole saying that any overtime worked would be paid at double time while we were in this sticky position.

Time for more explanations. Our department comprises Complaints Handlers, including me, and Support Staff. I don't need to explain what Complaints Handlers do but our Support Staff log the post, set up complaints on our computer system, send out letters to our customers (we acknowledge their complaints and then let them know periodically that we have not forgotten about them and then confirm in writing any complaints closed over the phone) and do myriad other administrative tasks.

We wouldn't grind to a halt without our Support Staff but the department would not run anywhere near as efficiently as it does now. I think they do a wonderful job and they have exactly the same problems as the Complaints Handlers, too much work and not enough people to do it.

Well, it transpired two days ago that this wonderful incentive of double time applies to Complaints Handlers only. Support Staff would only get the more usual time and a half. It was unfortunate that they had already come in to do some overtime and were finding out for the first time that they would not getting double time. Of course, this caused a furore and I, not wishing to stand by and do nothing, sent an e-mail to our top manager explaining how valuable a job our Support Staff do, how their workloads are at ridiculous levels too and how it is simply not fair to treat them differently.

The answer came back saying that the double time incentive had been approved at Director Level and all they were interested in was how many complaints get closed. Administrative Tasks are below the radar.

We then pointed out that the e-mail had gone to every member of the Department and had not specified that the double time is for Complaints Handlers only. The reply was that this would be fed back to the manager who sent the e-mail. The first concession was that Support Staff would get paid double time if they closed complaints. The second was that any overtime they had worked up to that point would be paid double-time regardless of what they had been doing.

This left my friend and colleague Goodwill Gemma still out in the cold. She is registered disabled and part of her disability is that she cannot handle angry customers over the telephone. This would inevitably lead to panic attacks and she would most likely need to go home or even need medical attention. She asked me if she should e-mail the managers and use the word discrimination in her message. I advised her to use it liberally, I was still fuming on their behalf.

She got her reply. She can close complaints in writing and get paid double time like the rest of us. So the mutiny was over.

It still leaves the problem and it is well recognised by everybody in the department. We are chronically understaffed, over-worked and worst of all under-valued. Sometimes I really hate Directors.

Jester, Exploding Boilers and Manager Call-backs

2007-02-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

Full time hours are not going too badly and the tiredness is becoming less of an issue for me but I'm now full of a cold so I have a sore throat, stuffed up/runny nose and I'm sneezing fit to burst. Never mind, I'm happy to keep going into work, safe in the knowledge that I'll be spreading my germs like nobody's business and also staying out of trouble. You see my company has a sickness policy - if you are still breathing, you have to come into work. Some forward thinkers are trying to make even death no excuse for taking time off work.

My reasonable gentleman, mentioned in the last blog, who went straight to the top settled for a nice figure yesterday - nicer for him than the company but I am a generous jester so that's one complaint closed.

I was investigating another yesterday and today and I was struck at the lengths some people will go to to speak to a manager. This particular person was having trouble with her boiler and was unhappy with how long her claim was taking so she rang our help-line and told one of my colleagues that her boiler had exploded and blown one of the walls off her house, causing £340,000 worth of damage.

She got her manager call back quickly enough, I can imagine the poor fellow running to find a manager and breathlessly telling her what had happened. The manager rang her back and she explained that the boiler had not exploded and the wall was still where it had been the previous day and probably had been since the house had been built. She told the hapless manager that she had thought that that was the only way to get a response from our company. The manager explained that she had only needed to ask for a manager to call her back and one would have done so.

I would say that that is being economical with the truth. We have a team of people to make manager call backs and none of them are managers. Of course, if the customer is still not happy then we may get a manager to call back but it might just go to a slightly more experienced member of staff. I suppose if you're insistent enough, you may get to speak to a manager but we try to look after them as much as possible.

Fortunately, most of our customers do not feel the need to make such claims to get a manager to call back and of course, this one provided me and my colleagues with a great deal of amusement along the way.

Jester and her Baptism of Fire

2007-02-05T23:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I went back on full-time hours. I went part-time last summer because of stress but earlier this year I realised that I was able to cope with full time work again. Actually, I was missing the money but please don't tell anybody. So I went full-time again as of 05 February 2007 and what a baptism of fire it was me.

For a start, I do one late shift a week on a rolling rota and it just so turned out that I was on a late (11am - 8pm) on my first day back. I was exhausted by 12, which obviously didn't bode well for the rest of the day.

On top of that I picked up two thoroughly nasty complaints to deal with. One, a claim for compensation of £8,000 because a customer was left with a collapsed and overflowing drain for a lengthy period and another was a complaint to the Chairman of the Board. Yes, we pick those up too. Fortunately, the gentleman who went straight to the top appeared to be a pleasant and reasonable man during my brief telephone conversation with him.

Oh yes and we're badly short-staffed at the moment because of sickness and staff leaving so the telephones were going all day.

Well, I made it and I'm now ready for another 8 hours at work today. Fortunately, I finish at 5pm tonight so hopefully I won't spend the evening asleep on the sofa like I did yesterday. My husband is a policeman and consequently works stupid shifts. He was highly amused by my weary and drawn face last night and was still laughing this morning when he realised I was doing my first ever quick changeover.

My shifts are still infinitely better than his so I'll probably end up having the last laugh.

Jester, Saul and the Accusation of Theft

2007-02-02T23:25:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you a little about the Dark Satanic Mill. Strictly speaking, it is an assistance company, working on behalf of insurance companies. Our remit is to get plumbers or gas engineers or electricians or other tradesmen to our customers in times of crisis. We have a network of approved contractors, some of which have been working with us for many years. I work in the complaints department and so have to deal with complaints about them.

I received a call from Saul, one of our contractors, on Wednesday. He asked me to see if I could find a letter that one of our policy holders, Ms X, had sent to us. He explained that his partner, Jim, had been accused by another policy holder, let's call him Mr Y, the neighbour of our correspondent, of stealing £200.00 from his house when he was there on a job. Saul gave me the postcode and I found the letter. It was a marvellous character reference for Jim, explaining that he had worked quickly and efficiently. He had only entered the house in company with Ms X and had been polite and courteous but, when it had become evident that he would have to go onto the neighbouring property to complete the repair, he had refused.

Mr Y had already told Ms X that a plumber from our company had stolen some money from his house but she had told him to look closer to home. Ms X questioned Jim and he confirmed that he had been accused of stealing money and therefore would not go back on the property. She went on to tell us that she had told her neighbour he should look closer to home for the culprit and not to accuse Water Company employees (many of our customers confuse us with the Water Company) with no evidence to back him up.

She explained further that Mr Y has two grown up children living with him. His son is 19 and prefers not to work and his daughter, a young unmarried mother, who apparently takes drugs, lives there with her baby. On the day that Jim visited, his daughter had a friend with her, a girl who is a well-known drug dealer in the area. Of course, Ms X believes that the drug dealing friend took the money and she wanted to tell us so that Jim would not get in trouble.

Her main problem though, was that her pipe could not be repaired unless Jim went onto Mr Y's property and she had wanted our company to resolve this problem. This had all been done by our Call Centre and Saul told me that the repair was being dealt with.

Saul asked me to show the letter to Spencer, the Area Network Manager, and asked if we had done anything about Mr Y's accusation. I checked our records and told him that at the time of the accusation, we had advised Mr Y to report the theft to the police but had not taken it any further. Saul was evidently relieved about this (so was I, it was nice to see our Call Centre follow a sensible course of action) and I told him that I would show the letter to Spencer when he was in the office the following day.

This I did and Spencer told me that he heard about the accusation but had never believed a word of it. Personally, I believe Saul, Jim and Ms X. You get a feel for contractors in my job and this lot are one of the best we have. As for Jim stealing money from a policy holder, well, it's laughable. I'd sooner believe that our resource planners are not a bunch of power-mad, jumped up gauleiters.

Jay, the resource planner and the disciplinary

2007-02-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Dark Satanic Mill

My friend Jay had a disciplinary hearing at work yesterday. I know Jay from work. I don’t socialise with him outside work but I think of him as a friend. I digress, as usual. The first I heard of it was when a mutual friend told me that two people from her team had been suspended. One was suspended because he was talking in an Asian language (she didn’t know which although from the demographic of my Asian co-workers, I would hazard a guess at Gujerati). The other was Jay and he had been suspended for telling a resource planner to “F*** off”. I actually think he should be commended, not suspended.

I suspect that all call centres (and the Dark Satanic Mill is a call centre, of course) have resource planners. When people work on telephones, you need somebody there to make sure that they are taking calls and not sat on “After Call Work” or whatever jargon is available to describe having your phone set to unavailable. Resource planners are a necessary evil but the job seems to attract people of the same ilk as Traffic Wardens.

Actually, my husband is a policeman (he introduced me to The Policeman’s Blog and couple of others I will have to mention). They now have a resource planner and guess what? He’s an ex-traffic warden. So apt!

Our resource planners are a mixed bunch but when your job entails ringing people up and telling them to go back on available or ringing their managers and asking them to tell them to go back on available, it tends to affect ones personality in a strange way. I suppose I’m trying to say that they end up power-mad individuals.

Well, back to Jay. We’re very busy at work at the moment and although he was suspended, he was allowed in to work overtime. Strange Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass-thinking. I had a chat with him and asked him the truth of the matter. He said that the resource planner in question had told him to terminate a call because he believed it was a personal call. He had refused to do so because it was not and he was not going to terminate a business call and it escalated from there.

I do think that if I had been told to terminate a call, even a personal call, I would have reacted in the same way but then, our resource planners seem to be a bit scared of me. When I’m on “After Call Work”, they ring up and say “Did you know you’re on ACW?” and I say yes or no depending on whether I knew or not. I frequently leave my phone on the “toilet state” and just tell them I had the squits. I’ve never been disciplined. I think the answer is I work in the complaints department, I’ve worked for the company since most of the resource planners were in short pants (or pigtails) and Jay doesn’t and hasn’t.

He had the union in to represent him yesterday so I’m hopeful that all went well and he won’t be so jumpy for much longer. He’s a good lad and a good worker and the company would be downright bloody stupid to sack him for telling some jumped-up little squirt to eff off!

Goodwill Jester 02 February 2007.