Another day, Another Dollar….
Originally published at ~+>Blue's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
I have been working alot of O/T… For May and June i worked 145 Hrs of O/T…. thats 3 hrs a day everyday i am @ work… and the company isn’t letting up…..
There were two occurance i had to miss O/T in june each for only 30 min, well the company changed the policy effective 11-July 2007 that is not the percentage of O/T not work (used to could be 20%) now its number of occurances, and the company is moving quick. On the first occurance its a Discussion (Stays in records for 6 mo), Then Couseling(1yr), Next is Warning(2yr), After that Letter in Leiu or Suspension(3yrs), and then being Termination. Thanks to this new policy i have moved to step three in MisConduct.
I’ve been at this job 19 months, it used to never be this hard to do my job. Our Sales Objectives were atainable, there wasn’t as much assigned O/T, Vacation time was available most of the time during the week. But withing the last 4 months things have gotten increasingly difficult. I.E. Our Sales Goals in March were 34 Retention Units and $4500 in net revenue. In July its 54 Retention Units and $6400 in revenue monthly. We are on a YTD metric for sales on Net Sales so numbers are low one month they errect overall year to date numbers. Previously Sales were measured on a month-to month baises.
Now as the months have been progressing our sales goals have have been building up, going higher and higher, yet our call volume hasn’t changed, and some days its slower. We also got news other Sales Channels (Indirect, Outbound Telemarketing, Direct Mail, Door-to-Door, etc) were not meeting objectives either so as the first line in the company that is in contact with customer were were chosen to help bump up company numbers. The company now figures 7 days of vacation on YTD numbers instead of backing out time as it happens as it was previously. There have been changes in some of the products we offer, DSL was recently lowered in price, some new services introduced to higher tiers of service for no fee, however, the new $10/mo DSL Lite service is available ONLY online and our cashback offers and coupons have been reduced; also the customer now has to wait 4 weeks not 14 days before even calling to redeem a reward.
Now in late March and early April i took a week and a half of vacation, my time wasn’t backed out, so i went from 108% YTD in March to 97% in April. Now, if you think like i do you would say to yourself,”Work a lil harder the next month or two and pull your numbers up,” however, the problem is the numbers in the month of May increased and i made 100.3% and in June they increased again and i met the goal by 101%, although my numbers Monthly are being met since our goals have increased my YTD has been stagnet. So, what the company looks are in a three month rolling time for sales, for 3 months i am below goal, 2.44% to be exact. And I have been placed on Step 1, a Couseling.
That the jsut one of the issues I’ve had. Now for disciplinary action there are several different catagories. Attendance, Sales, MisConduct, and Other. Last year there were a few days i had to miss because i didn’t have vacation time and also fore having to go into the hospital. So Far I am now on: Step 4 in Attendence (A Letter in leiu of Suspension) which means if i have to take a hit on a day and no time is avalible and i don’t have an emergancey i can be terminated, Step 1 in Sales for being under 100% YTD, and until today i was on step 2 for MisConduct for Adherance and MisUse of Company equipment (i had sent e-mails to someone outside of the company while on company time) back in Dec of Last year.
Adherance is a lil difficult in my line of work. The company says i have to be witing 93% of adhearing to my scedule. That menas taking breaks, lunches, time off the phone as sceduled. Now in a call center enviroment there are times when you are going to be out of adherance. I.E. I have a Break at 11:30, Lunch at 1:30, Study time @ 2:30, and Final break @ 4:00. lets say I get a call at 11:15 where a customer wants all new servies setup with an entire package (Typically takes aout 40 minutes to place the order, recap, and disclose everything). I take my break @ 11:40. That means i took my break 10 minutes after i was sceduled and i will be back on the phone 10 minutes after i was supposed to be back, a total of 20 minutes out of adherance. In a given day 7% adverance is 15 minutes out, so in this case i am out of adherance 5 minutes. Given the job i have of sales and customer service it happens many times that calls may run over into breaktimes or lunch so going out of adherance isn’t hard.
To say the least, there are alot of metrics i am mesured and monitoried on at my job. Many of which used to be flexiable with reasonable justification until recently. While i am not trying to cry wolf, i don’t abuse the system like many people i know, i do my job to the best of my abilities. I am going to keep doing my job as i always have until something happends. Till then i have a paycheck and somethign to do from 7a to 6p Mon to Fri.
~+>Blue
P.S. My Birthday is Next Week, i will be off for a few days hopefully from Thursday through Sunday…. I plan on taking some time to see a few ppl :-)