January 26, 2009 at 8:32 am
Ross McMicken (1/26/2009)[hr
From what I've read, this is mostly a call center workers issue. They seem to get the worst of it from all sides - management and customers. That's a job I'm glad I never had to take. I' vealso heard of systems where contractors were working from home, and had to have IM turned on while working. If a manager couldn't get them on IM, they didn't get paid for that time.
Working in a call center is one of the worst jobs out there; it’s not unusual for a call center to have 150% to 200% employee turnover in a year.
In light of that, I guess they figure there is nothing they can do to make the situation worse, so they might as well screw their employees a little more.
January 26, 2009 at 8:38 am
Michael Valentine Jones (1/26/2009)
Ross McMicken (1/26/2009)[hr
From what I've read, this is mostly a call center workers issue. They seem to get the worst of it from all sides - management and customers. That's a job I'm glad I never had to take. I' vealso heard of systems where contractors were working from home, and had to have IM turned on while working. If a manager couldn't get them on IM, they didn't get paid for that time.
Working in a call center is one of the worst jobs out there; it’s not unusual for a call center to have 150% to 200% employee turnover in a year.
In light of that, I guess they figure there is nothing they can do to make the situation worse, so they might as well screw their employees a little more.
Not always, though. My company's call centre mainly employs temps, but turnover is pretty low and some even hit 5 years or more service. What goes around comes around.....
Semper in excretia, sumus solum profundum variat
January 26, 2009 at 8:46 am
Call centers often have high turnover and companies don't hire or train well, but it's not universal. There are lots of companies that treat their employees well and understand that call center is a reflection of this.
The practice is definitely despicable and a poor business practice. My guess is that most people will work in places like this for as short a period of time as they can. And they'll get away with it until someone sues them and then they'll be a large settlement for an amount less than the profits that wre made.
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/way0utwest
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
My Blog: www.voiceofthedba.com
January 26, 2009 at 9:04 am
This sounds like fair practice... if and only if every time someone does something that saves the company a person-year the company writes them a check equivalent to one year's salary.
:{> Andy
Andy Leonard, Chief Data Engineer, Enterprise Data & Analytics
January 26, 2009 at 9:09 am
Andy Leonard (1/26/2009)
This sounds like fair practice... if and only if every time someone does something that saves the company a person-year the company writes them a check equivalent to one year's salary.:{> Andy
If only the real world worked like that. I could have retired by now.
Karen Gayda
MCP, MCSD, MCDBA
gaydaware.com
January 26, 2009 at 10:01 am
I work in a development organization, and I know there are sometimes where there are problems that are easier to fix with a re-boot, but there are other times when other employee's install some new software, or some personal software ( against company policy) on their pc, which I wish they could be docked for. Something goes wrong with their pc, and they drag me into it, spending hours trying to find what's wrong, only to find out it's some new driver they installed to get better music for their itunes or something like that.
January 26, 2009 at 10:08 am
majorbloodnock (1/26/2009)
I can easily see this being a parallel scenario. Company docks money from employee for reboots, employee bills company for loss of earnings when reboot was caused by a network glitch. Company sees network glitch caused by virus, so recoups "loss of earnings" claims from employee whose PC introduced the virus. Hapless employee sues company for failing to provide effective AV protection. And so on. And on. And on.
And, of course, at each step there's the possibility of a lawsuit, so guess who's raking it in? Note that the link for more info is to The Law Journal.
Derek
January 26, 2009 at 10:58 am
I've managed lots of different kinds of hourly workers (and been one many times in my early career), and I'll bet that this ill-conceived policy was designed to deal with a class of slackers who reboot WAAAY more often than necessary as an excuse for not working. Don't know the details of the case and don't care, since I'm sure it's Microsoft's Fault™, but I'm betting that it was a frustrated middle management that couldn't think of an easier way to get their employees back to work.
Nearly every time I have to stoop to dialing a call center of some kind for help (technical or otherwise), the person on the other end of the phone "is having computer problems" of some unspecified nature which I'm certain is a convenient cover for lacking of training or competence.
I managed a call center team in the early '90s and I know that every time you get put on hold for any reason it's because somebody doesn't know what they're doing.
:hehe:
January 26, 2009 at 10:53 pm
jeff ernest (1/26/2009)
I work in a development organization, and I know there are sometimes where there are problems that are easier to fix with a re-boot, but there are other times when other employee's install some new software, or some personal software ( against company policy) on their pc, which I wish they could be docked for. Something goes wrong with their pc, and they drag me into it, spending hours trying to find what's wrong, only to find out it's some new driver they installed to get better music for their itunes or something like that.
We prevent that by using group policies applied at startup and login to prohibit employees from installing anything on a company owned PC that's not on the approved list and installed from a network server.
When I did PC support, I had a personal policy of reloading the OS when I found the user had installed garbage. Me to user "Something's hosed your whole PC, I'll have to reinstall windows. You didn't have anything on the drive you needed to keep, did you?".
January 29, 2009 at 6:41 am
Sounds like a company thats pretty foolish! Those employees are not going to be very dedicated!
Viewing 10 posts - 16 through 24 (of 24 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply