"[Office Story] According to plan...UPDATE!!!" Topic

Disclaimer: No banjos were played, or small children sent to coal mines during the writing of this story. Also, no circus midgets joined the vatican while this was being written…

An update to TMP link

So I get into the office this morning, (approx 1 hour ago)and "C" (the acting supervisor/mentor/guy stuck with the job) says…"Wellll..guess what folks? Seems like the three call centers in Panama and Malaysia cannot handle the volume of calls they are receiving and it's making them "a little crazy," so they are asking us to take 25% of the call volume…"

Simply put…Last Friday it was 10%
Yesterday 10-20%
Today 25%

So the people that they hired to do our jobs and couldn't do our jobs with the training and time provided to learn to do our jobs, STILL cannot do our jobs because of the high call volume???….

Man, someone sure porked the puppy on this project…

It's the same everywhere Murph!

Almost every time a non-IT Exec makes an IT decision it results in multiple I-D-10-T errors that are compounded daily and in the end cost substantially more than they were paying.

It's not a theorem, it's a law!

D~

no circus midgets joined the vatican while this was being written

Prove it.

Time to negotiate, Murph. You've got 'em by the proverbial spheres.

I'd ask for a sit down with the management team. Point out that this operation is going past their claimed end date, and is likely continue to do so. Meanwhile, however, you do have other priorities of your own to consider— namely, finding a source of continuing income and work when (or if) this project finally does come to a conclusion. You're happy to work with them, but you need to do so in a way that meets your own needs as well. You might suggest a consulting option (with a huge boost to your personal income— you want to cover the cost of things you will lose when the job ends, like health insurance and other bennies). If structured properly, you could actually see your personal income go above what they pay you (including bennies), while they see their costs actually go down (as they escape certain tax obligations, etc.). OR you could ask for more pay or a bigger severance package, or even a guarantee of income/work for another six months with a flexible time schedule to allow for your job hunting/business starting endeavors.

They've put you in a bind, and now the worm has turned. Don't screw 'em— you don't want to make them resent you or hate you (you need the references, at the very least). But play your cards right and you could end up with a nice situation. Play 'em really well, and you could make them happy, too, and wind up with a little independent consulting business.

You might want to go order this t-shirt: tinyurl.com/53uue (the URL is not worksafe, but the image is probably PG-13 or a light R at worst)

Or, any of the other products tinyurl.com/66ruy The mouse pad might be a bit more subtle.

Wyatt

Take their money.

Hate them and everything they stand for.

I would think that perhaps a majority of the folks who are left would have to approach them about consulting. Otherwise they might just dump the individual and toss the extra work on the others. Based on the intelligence of the Company displayed so far I think that may be a possibility. However, if a majority of folks did it you may have them where you want them.

Thanks,

John

(nods to John)

The other consideration here is the need for the people who made and approved the decision to 'save face' if at all possible.

If it looks like they made or approved a plan that fails spectacularly, it's going to look bad for their review and affect them (and their salary) personally.

Depending on your preferred metaphore, leave a golden bridge for the enemy to retreat over, or don't corner the rat.

Something Positive is obviously channeling Murphy's life:

link

I hate overseas call center.
It is to a degree a culture issue. I want to state my problem, they want to go thru a script. My problem is usually number 42 on their list. And we can't get there without going from 1-41 with a question being asked, me replying, then my response being repeated back to me, until I turn into a ranting xenophobe. I have stopped doing business with companies that do this to me….

breathing slowly to lower my blood pressure…….

Murphy, I feel your pain

Nancy

I hate overseas calls centres nearly as much as I hate machine voices on my phone when I ring companies; you know the "Thankyou for calling, please make your selection" which leads to 97 submenus when you could have told a human operator in a few lines what you wanted….

Time to own up, Murphy. Is this story about you?

thedaily.com/Articles/Microsoft-Vissa,-Hey-Thats-Ours,--More-Support-Stories.aspx"link"link

(the bleeped text is "w t f" without the spaces)

[Edit] Bummer, the autoformatting of urls fails if the Bleepomatic is triggered.