[NTLK] Office Politics-Ugly Side

Should I tell a tale of the ugly side? In this tale the Newton does
it's job.

Around 1997 I worked in a call center. I would like to say that my use
of the Newton in the call center that got me the full time position that
I was in at the time the story happens. In truth, I still work for that
company. :) So the Newton was instrumental to my early success.

One day a bit before Christmas I get a call from a customer who calls in
to our credit card service center that his account was wrongfully
charged. This charge set him back from being able to buy Christmas
gifts for his kids. He was perfctly innocent. I told him I would send
to our accounting department and track to make sure this went through.
And so the Newton was locked in to remind me of this.

And so the Newton would remind me of this day after day. I checked in
every few days, and what should have been a one to two day process was
growing into over a week. I supplied every fact and number related to
this case to try to get the customer taken care of. Finally two weeks
into this and getting close to Christmas I wrote "Listen, is there
anyone else over there I can ask to take care of this?"

She complained to her supervisor, who complained to my supervisor.

I WAS WRITTEN UP, can you believe that? Here the Newton had helped
track something for a customer, but I was the bad guy for trying to help
a man buy christmas gifts and correct a mistake that WE the credit card
company made? When I explained why and how I followed up on it, they
told me due to security reasons (since I had the customer reference
number in my Newton to look that up from time to time) that I and anyone
else were to leave laptops and PDA's out of the office. Can't walk out
with sensitive information.

I told them that they should outlaw notebooks and pads of paper then as
well. I was making a logical point, but that was not taken very well,
nor did they see the logic. I even told them "I can store this on a
card and leave the memory card WITH YOU." They wouldn't hear of it. My
Newton stayed in my bag and not used in that department after that.

They took the customer off my hands, my supervisors said they would
handle it. I reluctantly said "Ok."

Sometime in February my supervisor said "We got that customer taken care
of!" My supervisor seemed proud of this fact.

I just looked at my supervisor and said "That is really... pathetic.".
And walked away.

That experience I was blindsided that incompetience would actually be
upheld and protected. Learned a lot from that. Having moved on to
departments that were more open minded, I had my Newton in hand for
years after that. Was able to keep up with things for customers, and
can say no customer had to go without for so long again. I ran into
incompetience time and time again, but was forewarned and knew the
command structure and how to step around those people. :)

Thank you Newton for helping me learn that.

And also a good idicator for me in the future. Any place that would not
let people us use Newtons and other PDA's was not a place for me. ;)

Doc Clu
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Received on Fri Jul 10 09:22:27 2009