Jester, Her Chair and the Unusual Customer

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.

Jessica, Jemma and the Delicate Situation

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

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

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.

Jester, Audits and Defences

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".

Jessica, Magicians and X-Ray Vision

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

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 and Meetings (The Practical Alternative to Work)

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

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

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

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.

Mad Eye Moody, Jessina and Letting off Steam

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

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

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

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 and the Jokes

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, Delusions and Health Visitors

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

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

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

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

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

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.