I got lucky at work....(or the ending of the week from hell at work...)
Some of you already know bits from either talking with me over the last week, or from facebook....but....
(and yes, it got very long, so I put it behind cuts to save your pages...if you aren't interested, don't bother opening them..)
First, a little background. I was hired almost 17 years ago as a claim processor at my company. I did quite well, and had some voluntary variations (ie taking on mentoring of other new hires, processing some of the specialty products, etc) as well as some involuntary (being moved from one division to another, although still with the same job function). About 6-7 years ago, the high-muckty-muck in the "powers that be" decided that it didn't make good business sense to have everyone only doing one job function, ie processing claims (Claim) or taking calls (Call), so everyone (or at least almost everyone...we did still manage to have a few work-at-home manage to keep claim only status, and had some in-house call only folk) would be cross-trained and become "service consultants" (call/claim) and do both functions. It was heavily resisted and many of us that were claim were dragged, kicking and screaming, into call (the old learn claim or no job for you stick....big stick...). I was one of those last ones that was dragged into cross-functionality. I am not and have never been a big fan of talking to people on the phone. I barely do it at home, I most certainly do not want to do it at work. At work people call in just to yell at you for something that is not your fault (and often isn't even our company's fault, but is because of decisions made by the plan sponsors that enter into the contracts for coverage with us for their memberships/employees). Case in point, today, our phones were backlogged so people not scheduled on the phones were emailed and asked to get into the queues to clear them out....I got two people yelling at me...one for an eligibility issue that Aetna had nothing to do with since his plan sponsor handled all their own eligibility and not us...who after yelling at me for not being able to "fix it right now" wouldn't get off the line without talking to a supe (my poor supe was on the phone with him for about 45 minutes...). Next one is yelling at me for us denying her "eye exam and glasses as not covered under her vision policy"...the claim was a hospital claim that was denied because we didn't have her medical coverage, only her vision coverage, but she was still going to yell until she wore herself out on me before she'd listen to the information about the claim. And that's about par for the course. I don't handle stress very well in general, even less so since my pulmonary emboli several years ago. So being in a high stress job, in a high stress industry was very rough...only made bearable by the fact that as a service consultant I was only on the phones part of my week.
Flash forward to last week Friday afternoon. Supervisor calls our unit into a urgent unit meeting. (meanwhile other supervisors are too, but they've spread them out..only so many conference rooms...so we didn't realize everyone was being pulled into meetings). First thing she says is "What we are about to talk about CAN NOT be discussed outside of this room until next week. ANYONE caught talking about it on this property for the rest of today WILL BE written up and you will be reported to HR and it will be an HR issue, and could result in disciplinary action, upto and including termination of employment" (uh oh...those words generally aren't followed by good news....)
Home Office has decided that it is not efficient to have dual-role jobs, specifically the call/claim service consultant positions. OUCH...remember, this is being told to rooms full of people with exactly that job. No, home office isn't planning a mass layoff, but all current dual-role staff will be assigned to either claim or call. The decision will come from home office as to who ends up where. No input at all will be accepted from us, from our supervisor or manager. In fact, no input from ANYONE in our office building (and we're the 2nd largest field office in the company and have I think 2 regional managers in our office). But, we won't be told until the following Thursday (yesterday), who will be assigned where. Enter a full weekend and following week of extremely high stress for everyone, as most of us have very strong feelings about one or both sides of our job function. Oh....and, by the way, your new assignment will be effective the following Monday (ie next week). Not even the supervisors or managers are being spared...they will also be randomly assigned to claim or call.
Many people (myself included, I admit) ended up taking time off this week, just because of the stress and the tension at work. At times the environment would get down-right toxic with everyone stressing out. Mind you, many of the staff leave as early as 3pm when not on phone schedule for the day. As of 4pm no one in the building had been told their assignments. A very few units got told after 4:15 yesterday. Today was almost like watching a mass slaughter in slow motion. Starting about 9am today, supervisors were bringing their unit members into conference rooms one by one and giving them the news of their assignments...call or claim. I admit I am one of the people that *HATED* being on the phones, and the worst possible thing for me would have been assigned to call. I would most likely have ended up quitting rather than try to stick out a job I absolutely hated. (and am not the only one by a long shot).
I was one of the fortunate ones that by the luck of the draw and random selection wanted claim and got claim. Only a bit over a third of my unit got claim, and about the same of all the other units in my division (we've had 6 or 7 different divisions in our office, so some other divisions may have had different ratios) The other two senior consultants in my unit, both with more years than I have, and both also started as claim way back when, both got assigned to call. Several others that view the call portion of the dual job the same as I got call. There were quite a few people in tears, many that have already stated they are going to be starting to look for other jobs, both within and outside of the company because they won't be able to stay in call very long without "losing it", some that took unscheduled PTO and left early for the day and I heard at least a few people quit on the spot. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that I got claim, and that I can look forward to putting the phones behind me for good (in theory at least..although the actual change in scheduling is still at least a couple weeks out while call management figures all the logistics and the office site manager's staff figures out how to re-stack the building to get us all moved into our new groups and units), but it is dampened by knowing that several of my co-workers that I consider friends are now in their worst nightmare, having been assigned to call. Work is going to be a pretty rough environment for awhile while all this is adapted into.
(and yes, it got very long, so I put it behind cuts to save your pages...if you aren't interested, don't bother opening them..)
First, a little background. I was hired almost 17 years ago as a claim processor at my company. I did quite well, and had some voluntary variations (ie taking on mentoring of other new hires, processing some of the specialty products, etc) as well as some involuntary (being moved from one division to another, although still with the same job function). About 6-7 years ago, the high-muckty-muck in the "powers that be" decided that it didn't make good business sense to have everyone only doing one job function, ie processing claims (Claim) or taking calls (Call), so everyone (or at least almost everyone...we did still manage to have a few work-at-home manage to keep claim only status, and had some in-house call only folk) would be cross-trained and become "service consultants" (call/claim) and do both functions. It was heavily resisted and many of us that were claim were dragged, kicking and screaming, into call (the old learn claim or no job for you stick....big stick...). I was one of those last ones that was dragged into cross-functionality. I am not and have never been a big fan of talking to people on the phone. I barely do it at home, I most certainly do not want to do it at work. At work people call in just to yell at you for something that is not your fault (and often isn't even our company's fault, but is because of decisions made by the plan sponsors that enter into the contracts for coverage with us for their memberships/employees). Case in point, today, our phones were backlogged so people not scheduled on the phones were emailed and asked to get into the queues to clear them out....I got two people yelling at me...one for an eligibility issue that Aetna had nothing to do with since his plan sponsor handled all their own eligibility and not us...who after yelling at me for not being able to "fix it right now" wouldn't get off the line without talking to a supe (my poor supe was on the phone with him for about 45 minutes...). Next one is yelling at me for us denying her "eye exam and glasses as not covered under her vision policy"...the claim was a hospital claim that was denied because we didn't have her medical coverage, only her vision coverage, but she was still going to yell until she wore herself out on me before she'd listen to the information about the claim. And that's about par for the course. I don't handle stress very well in general, even less so since my pulmonary emboli several years ago. So being in a high stress job, in a high stress industry was very rough...only made bearable by the fact that as a service consultant I was only on the phones part of my week.
Flash forward to last week Friday afternoon. Supervisor calls our unit into a urgent unit meeting. (meanwhile other supervisors are too, but they've spread them out..only so many conference rooms...so we didn't realize everyone was being pulled into meetings). First thing she says is "What we are about to talk about CAN NOT be discussed outside of this room until next week. ANYONE caught talking about it on this property for the rest of today WILL BE written up and you will be reported to HR and it will be an HR issue, and could result in disciplinary action, upto and including termination of employment" (uh oh...those words generally aren't followed by good news....)
Home Office has decided that it is not efficient to have dual-role jobs, specifically the call/claim service consultant positions. OUCH...remember, this is being told to rooms full of people with exactly that job. No, home office isn't planning a mass layoff, but all current dual-role staff will be assigned to either claim or call. The decision will come from home office as to who ends up where. No input at all will be accepted from us, from our supervisor or manager. In fact, no input from ANYONE in our office building (and we're the 2nd largest field office in the company and have I think 2 regional managers in our office). But, we won't be told until the following Thursday (yesterday), who will be assigned where. Enter a full weekend and following week of extremely high stress for everyone, as most of us have very strong feelings about one or both sides of our job function. Oh....and, by the way, your new assignment will be effective the following Monday (ie next week). Not even the supervisors or managers are being spared...they will also be randomly assigned to claim or call.
Many people (myself included, I admit) ended up taking time off this week, just because of the stress and the tension at work. At times the environment would get down-right toxic with everyone stressing out. Mind you, many of the staff leave as early as 3pm when not on phone schedule for the day. As of 4pm no one in the building had been told their assignments. A very few units got told after 4:15 yesterday. Today was almost like watching a mass slaughter in slow motion. Starting about 9am today, supervisors were bringing their unit members into conference rooms one by one and giving them the news of their assignments...call or claim. I admit I am one of the people that *HATED* being on the phones, and the worst possible thing for me would have been assigned to call. I would most likely have ended up quitting rather than try to stick out a job I absolutely hated. (and am not the only one by a long shot).
I was one of the fortunate ones that by the luck of the draw and random selection wanted claim and got claim. Only a bit over a third of my unit got claim, and about the same of all the other units in my division (we've had 6 or 7 different divisions in our office, so some other divisions may have had different ratios) The other two senior consultants in my unit, both with more years than I have, and both also started as claim way back when, both got assigned to call. Several others that view the call portion of the dual job the same as I got call. There were quite a few people in tears, many that have already stated they are going to be starting to look for other jobs, both within and outside of the company because they won't be able to stay in call very long without "losing it", some that took unscheduled PTO and left early for the day and I heard at least a few people quit on the spot. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that I got claim, and that I can look forward to putting the phones behind me for good (in theory at least..although the actual change in scheduling is still at least a couple weeks out while call management figures all the logistics and the office site manager's staff figures out how to re-stack the building to get us all moved into our new groups and units), but it is dampened by knowing that several of my co-workers that I consider friends are now in their worst nightmare, having been assigned to call. Work is going to be a pretty rough environment for awhile while all this is adapted into.