A Remote Support Technician Was A Hard Worker, But His Executive’s Bizarre Metrics Forced Him To Change How He Worked
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It’s no secret that, in any given workplace, the folk who likely have the most clue what’s going on in the company on an everyday, customer-facing basis, are the staff who actually work the floor (or, as in this case, operate the phone lines). Because no matter how many metrics and flashy graphs you assemble, you can only get a real feel for a job by working it yourself – and any higher-ups who do so will realise that they still have a lot to learn about the daily operation of the company that they lead.
Case in point, the executives running the company that the guy in this story used to work for. Everything was perfectly fine and the tech support workers were doing their jobs efficiently and effectively. But then came the analysis of the tickets system, and the use of each individual technician’s metrics to evaluate their job performance, when in reality, these tickets had a whole lot of variables to be taken into account. But fortunately for this guy, he found a workaround.
Read on to find out more.
Dealing with obnoxious ticketing rules
Years ago I worked as a support tech for a case management company.
The software we used to track support cases would automatically create a ticket when someone called in, filling in bits like the agent who answered, who called, when the call ended, etc.
We mainly used the tickets to track solutions to problems for when they came up again down the road and to identify which customers might need extra help.
But then this ticket system started to change.
One day some executive somewhere decided that we weren’t doing enough, and we would start being penalized if we didn’t complete a certain number of tickets each day and within thirty minutes of opening on average.
Some of the issues we dealt with were very complex, taking a week or more to resolve, and there weren’t always enough tickets to fill the quota on any given day.
This, understandably, did not go over well with nearly everybody.
Let’s see how this affected this worker.
Around this point I was working the last shift, meaning I would be alone for 1-2 hours at the end of the shift. Most of my customers (typically other IT folks) were already off for the day by then so I had much fewer calls than normal.
Fortunately for me, one of the ones still working then was given nearly identical ticket requirements at nearly the same time, so he and I would work the system.
He would call in about a database issue, which would create a ticket, and I would start to work on it and tell him to call me back in 15 minutes.
He would, which would create another ticket, and after confirming the changes/fix with him I would close out both tickets.
Read on to find out how this scheme affected these workers.
Some days he would call once or twice more after that about some change or another he made. This gave each of us excellent metrics, and since the tickets were automatically created from incoming calls they looked extra legit.
Most of my co-workers were either fired or quit and found work elsewhere due to the new standards, whereas I was praised for always meeting the standard.
I soon left anyway for a better job and to move closer to family.
Patrick in California, I rather doubt you’ll ever see this but if you do I hope you know you were a real bro.
Honestly, systems like this are so ridiculous, and show how far removed executives are from the day to day work being done on the ground.
It’s no wonder that so many of his colleagues quit after this.
But finding a way to play the system? Even better.
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Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.
This person agreed that the executive’s decision was ridiculous.
While others were no strangers to playing the system.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a delivery driver who tried warning his boss the truck needed new brakes and tires, only to find his truck sidelined during their busiest season.
Meanwhile, this Redditor appreciated his and Patrick’s scheme.
This genius plan is something that only two workers at different companies, coping with the same system could come up with. And kudos to both of them, who likely managed to keep their jobs, until they were in a position to leave, as a result of this. Because when it’s your job or figuring out a way to play the system, you have to work something out. After all, we all have bills to pay, and if this means jumping through some random corporate hoops, so be it.
But this just shows how pointless metrics like this can be. In the end, these metrics likely cost this company some of its most competent and creative staff – case in point, this guy who even after figuring out how to protect his job, left for ventures new. Because executives can’t just push protocols like this on their workers without actually understanding the implications – or they can, but something like this will happen. Because no one wants to work in such an oppressive environment, so they leave.
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