2-Fer Tuesday secondary post..

Today I finally got a chance to let someone else know the pain I experience while dealing with "corporate" folks who are about 3,000 miles away.

I had to get on a conference call this morning, and go through a "refresher" course of how to enter in service requests.

Because of the nature of the beast, I had to also get my backup person in on the phone call as well.

So, before the call, I tidied up the office a bit, got some tea and soda, and one more chair.

Then, my "assistant" showed up, we entered the conference call..

Only to be met with complete silence.

Yup. We were on time, but the call hadn't started yet, and we were stuck in a no-man's land of "when is this show going to get started?"

So we made small talk, and idled about my office trying to patiently wait for the call to get started.

About ten minutes into the wait, the online presentation fired up, and we were able to see that everyone was there, just not able to get into the telephone part of the conference.

About ten minutes after that, the "moderator" for the call showed up, and we were able to get into the call.

So nearly a half hour was wasted on killing time for ONE person.

Now, there have been MANY problems with the way the service requests get done. Mainly the biggest problem for the group that were all in this meeting was dealing with setting up new hourly hires.

Not management, not salaried positions, nothing like that..

Just working grunt joes. Nothing fancy.

How did the conference start out? By telling us how to get things set up for Salaried employees.

Next? How to set up management.

Then, he tried to close, saying that everything had been covered.

Immediately there were 10 cries for explanations for hourly employees.

This is when we found out something I don't think the folks "back east" were wanting to admit to.

When they implemented this request plan, it was initially set up for ONLY salaried and management folks. Hourly associates weren't going to be needing anything from it.

However, when the company grew, it became necessary for them to implement changes in the request process, and hourly employees wound up needing things off the service request menus.

Just because this happened didn't mean that the company actually CHANGED anything, it just meant that we, as remote technicians, had to come up with new and interesting ways to request things.

Now, since the new audit, things have to change. Because of this, we can't request things for new hourly employees until the changes are made.

This means that any new hourly hires are effectively STUCK doing NOTHING worthwhile until the company changes their software and policies.

My "substitute" went NUTS when this bombshell was dropped.

"How are we going to get new folks set up if we can't get them access?"

The response?

"Have them do menial labor jobs until we can implement the change."

So, instead of being able to use the new folks to help with the work that they've been hired for, they're going to be pushing brooms, picking up wood particles, stacking pallets, and anything else that doesn't require some corporate security clearance.

When is this supposed to change?

Implement date is set for the beginning of next year. Tenative date that I was told about is February 10th for finalization.

Forgive me a second, but it's just now December, we've currently hired 12 folks, another 10 are on their way, and so I'm going to have 22 people doing crap jobs for THREE months while the changes that should have been made YEARS ago are finally done?

Yeah. My assistant was able to feel my pain today.

She's glad that she doesn't have to deal with this as much as I do.

Main reason? Because of the call, she went and ate a candy bar, and had three cups of coffee.

Me? I just tacked up yet one more note about things that need to get done once someone finished their job, and then sent off the required emails to my bosses.

Eventually, someone might get something right, and things will operate like they're supposed to.

Right now, I'm just having a tough time recalling who I've allowed to get away with what around here so that folks can actually work instead of play with dirt or pallets!

Anyway, I've got some new hires to fake credentials for, so I'm going to be busy the rest of the day.

You all have a great day, and I'll chit-chat with you at some point tomorrow!

Remember: WTF Wednesday, and I've got a doozy for ya!