Workplace problems can escalate quickly when people assume something is broken without checking what actually happened first.

So, what would you do if managers called an emergency meeting about a supposedly major system failure based on a single complaint? Would you assume the system was failing? Or would you just focus on finding out what really happened on that one call?

In the following story, one IT employee deals with this exact scenario and is frustrated by the whole thing. Here’s what happened.

In which managers blindly accept what their employees tell them

I arrived in the office promptly at 8 am, sat down, and started filtering through the automated alerts that had popped up the previous night.

Supposedly, there’s a team working to cull these down to just the serious ones, but that was six months ago.

Suddenly, my email pops with about a dozen new messages, my Lync client is ever-expanding, I’ve got three phone calls coming in, and my manager is walking over to my desk.

As she reaches my desk, I see the last email title: IT-RED-ALERT: AGENTS UNABLE TO PLACE 3-WAY CALLS TO THIRD PARTIES WITHOUT BEING DISCONNECTED.

His boss arrived at his desk.

$Boss: So, I need you to jump on a call.

$Boundbylife: Let me guess – consult transfers are failing?

$Boss: Yeah. We’ve only gotten one so far, but the business is concerned it’s a trend.

$BBL: We only have one example?

$Boss: Yes.

He jumped on the call.

$BBL: And the BUSINESS…

$Boss: I know.

$BBL: … thinks it’s a TREND.

$Boss: Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?

I mutter something about her job being to bat away the stupid, but I jump on the call anyway.

The Front Line Manager was mad, to say the least.

On the conference call are no less than 50 people: Front-line managers, telecom (who manage the relationship with the carriers), database admins, incident managers, Windows administration team, my boss, my boss’s boss, my boss’s boss’s boss, finance, marketing, some guy who’s title reads ‘federal compliance’, and I’m pretty sure some people who are glorified janitors.

My part in this is just to maintain and troubleshoot the phone software.

$BBL: Okay, so I understand we have consult transfers failing.

$FrontLineManager: YES. YOU NEED TO GET THIS FIXED RIGHT AWAY. IT IS A MAJOR BLOCKER FOR US.

Finally, he received the info.

$BBL: Sure thing. Can you provide me with relevant information for an example call? Agent name, station, date, time, number dialed?

$FLM: Oh….Uh…

Side note, this has been an ongoing struggle with all front-line managers. They KNOW, after dozens of these interactions, that I’m going to ask for the same information. Heck, they’ve even joked that I’m a broken record. And yet they never seem to have it ready

$FLM: (After ten minutes of shuffling, reads me off the information I need.)

$BBL: Okay, give me 10 minutes. I need to review the logging.

He began reviewing all the logs.

As I review the logs, I’m being bombarded with questions.

No, no changes have been made to the system. Our last patch was three weeks ago.

No, Windows updates would not have created this behavior.

No, this is not an issue with the carrier. It’s the agent that’s being disconnected, not the caller.

No, this isn’t a disk space issue. Why? Because my phone system doesn’t check your computer’s disk space.

No, this isn’t a coronal mass ejection. (There’s always that one guy who watches too much Science Channel)

After looking, he had some questions.

Finally, I’ve got the SIP message logs filtered, and I’m looking, I’m looking…..

$BBL: FLM, can you tell me exactly what was reported?

$FLM: The agent said they were disconnected when they tried to do a three-way call.

$BBL: Did you watch them attempt this?

Then, he explained the problem.

$FLM…

$BBL: Have you witnessed this behavior first-hand?

$FLM:…

$BBL: I only ask because, according to the log, we received a BYE (a signal to hang up) from the agent’s phone, before the consult was created. With no agent on the phone, the consult never sets up and is abandoned.

$FLM: (A pregnant pause) Well, that’s not what the agent told me.

The call ended quickly.

It’s now been 35 minutes since this whole debacle reached my plate. I ask the obvious question.

$BBL: Have we had any other reports of this?

$FLM: I…uh…

$BBL: I would suggest that the agent submit to a retraining process. Please kindly remind them that the telephone system requires an active connection to their phone to work properly.

Lync goes crazy as you hear 50 people disconnecting from the conference call.

Wow! Wonder if the agent got in trouble.

Let’s check out if the readers over at Reddit have ever encountered anything similar.

According to this reader, the manager needs training.

As this comment explains, some companies have escalation paths.

For this reader, it’s that 50 other people wasted their time.

Here’s someone who’s familiar with Lync.

This should’ve never been a thing.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.