A Jester, Shoes and the Fat Controller

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, Jeannie and the Missing Post

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.