July 20, 2015

E-Mail 2.015

Before we get into the main subject of today's post, I want to give everyone an update on my writing. This past weekend, I just finished chapter the III of my current project. For those who don't think that isn't much of anything, please keep in mind that I first write everything out by hand then transcribe, so it takes me an incredible amount of time to write. I'm currently sitting at 14,639 words.

Now, on to the show.

Disclaimer: This is something that I feel very passionate about because it is affecting my career quite insidiously. If the tone is too sharp for you to handle, please feel free to check out my Tumblr blog, which contains recaps of the previous weeks blog postings (please note, it sucks up lotsa bandwidth).

I mostly have a hate-hate relationship when it comes to business e-mail. I find it to be a smelly skidmark on the underwear of work and hands down, can do untold damage to one's career, especially if you have a supervisor who is unwilling to look beyond the 2% complaints, thus holding you to impossibly unobtainable standard.

Before  I go any further,  I must explain the difference between true customer service and pseudo customer service. True customer service is what you experience on a day-to-day and even hour-to-hour basis in your life. You patronize a business and expect to be treated not necessarily special, but like an equal to the person helping you out with your particular issue, because we all know that you usually get back what you put into it. By the same token, if you have crappy customer service, besides making a complaint about it, you can also punish them by closing your wallet.

Pseudo customer service is what you forced to deliver when you're working a large guv't entity, usually on the state or federal level. Pseudo is usually internal, and for the most part, especially if you're working for a large entity like I do, its dealing with temper tantrums from people who can ruin your career just because they can.

Where I work, it's mostly dealing with temper tantrums from those kind of people. These temper tantrums are the direct result of a deeply embedded dual destructive culture of entitlement/inability to accept the word no.

The litany of complaints I've gotten over the years just directly due to this dual destructive culture is absolutely mind-boggling and staggering. In the real world, 95% of those complaints would be instantly dismissed, but here, they're treated as the equivalent as the tail wagging the dog.

As a few of you have probably ascertained over the past 8 years, I can be extremely blunt/sharp, honest and have an extremely low tolerance of stupid. Some of you even had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of my retorts, which I have sincerely apologized for over the years, so you know how nasty, yet entirely professional I can be.

Over the past 10 years at my current place of debauchery, I've had the misfortune of creating that bad (in some eyes) first impression and it has haunted me ever since. To whit, out of nine annual evaluations 2006-14, I have only gotten a "good" for Ability To Deal With People only once, a "poor" once and "fair" seven times. This, in spite of the fact that I am told numerous occasions that they want me to move on because I can do the job, if only I would do better with "customer service."

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but this is your fault. You chose to focus on the 3% negative instead of the 97% positive. You, not me, have sabotage any and all chances that I have in trying to transfer out of my agency or even out of my unit. You, not me, have ignored any and all viable solutions that I have offered to rectify this problem, and because of that ignorance, you still decide to punish me.

And yet you wonder why I don't give a shit anymore. It's directly due to you, and everyone else, demonstrating that what you do speaks at 120 decibels, whereas what you say, speaks only at 50 decibels.

Remember, what comes around goes around, and continuing to give maximum effort for zero return is ultimately workplace suicide. Especially when you're forced to practice pseudo customer service and forced to swallow everyone's garbage, because heaven forbid, you utter the infamous N word (no not the one that starts with n and ends with r, which I find personally abhorrent) at someone who makes twice your salary, has 10% of your smarts and suffers from inflated sense of importance that is larger than The Donald's.

And that, my friends, is how you properly start off a Monday.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

14 comments:

  1. And you realize if you started saying yes more often, you'd get in trouble for that as well, wouldn't you?
    You are in a really crappy catch-22.

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    Replies
    1. Very much a crappy catch-22. I used to say "yes" to a lot of things with my payrolls, because I'm one of those who will treat someone decent and with respect if I'm treated the same way.

      Over the years, enough people have taken advantage of my generosity and/or shredded my rep to pieces so that I now play hardball with everyone.

      Delete
  2. You sure make me glad I'm not in government service.

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    1. I'm glad I was able to provide a key service to you, although I might give you thanks for the same thing about the university system. I've seen enough over the decades both here and through you to forever sour me on working in the educational system.

      You sir, have me deepest respect for what you do and how you go about doing it.

      Delete
  3. i did work in government for 33 years and managed to get past this...They once had to increase my salary because, well I did too much. I also dealt with the public and was bent toward helping them, no mater what superiors said. I was even more fortunate in that i became respected, not by higher ups with in my particular part of government, but by levels that were much above the highest people in my level. I was published in my research and nationally (and even internationally ) recognized. I stepped on toes any time it did not fit with what those above thought, but then i was considered the "crazy chemist", but i ended up having much respect. I wish you the best in your endeavors, this is not an easy task

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    1. Thanks.

      I plan on doing some research over the weekends, since I was able to get copies of all my service ratings (roughly 20 years worth, give or take) from my personal file to see if I can discover a good pattern of deceitfulness.

      I'm a little like you, in that I have the respect of my peers and I can pretty much do what I need to do with my job because I soak up other aspects of my job like a sponge.

      I have a lot of institutional memory, and if I leave, through hook or by crook, I'll be very hard to replace. As it is, I may have to wait until my supervisor retires next year in order to get some kind of relief.

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Extremely.

      I'm between a rook and hard place right now, because even though I'm ready to bring things to the next level, I'm not looking forward to making a major stink about this.

      But I will, in one form or another.

      Delete
  5. One think I like to remember about being a banker is that our vault was soundproof and when the over abundance of customer service that was required of me became too great I could go in the vault and scream my lungs out before returning to the hated task all smiles.

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    1. I don't have too many place left to hide these days. About all I do now is talk to my computer whenever I'm getting annoyed/stressed. For the moment, I'm sounding exceptionally brain dead on the phone because my brain is pretty much toast. Thus, no muss, no fuss.

      Delete
  6. Ugh, I'm so sorry - I could never do your job without going postal, or into a mental health unit. And it's shitty to have people focus on the negative. Everyone loses their cool now and then. I think you should get a medal for keeping calm with these idiots 97% of the time!

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    1. Don't think I haven't gone mildly postal at least a half dozen times in the past decade at that place. I can honestly tell you that things will come to a head the next time I'm "counseled" or during my yearly eval, whichever comes first.

      Delete
  7. That all sounds very draining. I am fortunate in that I have enough authority in my workplace that no one expects me to be a "yes-man". I am big on compromises and picking my battles, for the sake of my own mental health, but no one is going to give me a "fair" in personal relations for standing up for myself when someone else is being an idiot.

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    1. Exceptionally so, which is why I'm in the frame of mind that I'm right now. In re: to personal relations, about the only way I'll get beyond "fair" is if I can get the hell out of Dodge and be somewhere there isn't such a poisonous atmosphere to work in.

      Delete

These days, the written word is to die for, so please leave a comment that shows me and everyone else the real you. All kinds of verbiage will be cheerfully accepted in the spirit it was written.