Jester’s absence from the ‘Net

There have been lots of changes for this particular jester since I last blogged. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I no longer have unlimited access to a computer or the Internet, so blogging has become almost impossible for me.

I am still a jester at the Dark Satanic Mill but, after a sideways move, I no longer have the job of speaking to customers, who tend to be to a greater or lesser degree, completely mad and therefore either wonderfully entertaining or completely infuriating. Unfortunately, you cannot predict beforehand which they are going to be; thereby making my professional life a bit of a lottery.

I was beginning to feel the strain in the past few months and actually pointed out to one customer a few weeks ago that it was no fun speaking to him and I had decided that I no longer wanted to continue with such an unproductive activity and hung up on him. My senior jester took action and moved me to another area, where I don’t have to deal with customers quite so much.

So, the sideways move was for my benefit and also the Dark Satanic Mill’s. I am enjoying my new role because it involves far more investigation and suits my analytical mind perfectly. Also, I don’t have to speak to customers. I know I’ve already mentioned that but it is a major bonus for me.

Fortunately for me as a blogger, some things have not changed. The office is still freezing. Our printer is still broken and still complains bitterly if one of my fellow jesters is a little too heavy handed with it. Pennywise is off sick again. Jasper is still entertaining me on a daily basis. Recently, our fax machine did not work for a week until somebody noticed that the telephone connection had been unplugged. Business as usual.

Last week, we ran out of headed paper (and were without for a couple of days). Not a problem for me. I don’t have to send letters to customers any more but the huge majority of my fellow jesters do. Some of them have to send out FSA letters. If they don’t get sent, we’re in breach of FSA regulations and the individuals concerned could end up having to pay a hefty fine. One of our directors has said that jesters who breach this particular regulation more than once should get the sack. A bit draconian, I think, especially when the Dark Satanic Mill is unable to ensure that the jesters have the raw materials to avoid breaching the regulations. I would like to see her attempt to sack a jester for this particular crime; the reaction could be very interesting. Actually, I would like to see her try to do a jester’s job without actually going mad. That would be very interesting indeed.

Jester, Pennywise and Frayed Tempers

Tempers have been frayed in the Dark Satanic Mill for the past few weeks. It all started when Pennywise returned to work after a long period of sickness. When I came into work on 28th August, he was sat at his desk (just behind mine for the first couple of weeks) as if he had never been away. Okay, I wasn’t expecting sackcloth and ashes (although it would have been an edifying sight) but the jaunty cheeriness of his bearing was irritating.

It didn’t take long for our fellow jesters (including me) to notice that he seemed to be back to his old tricks again. He spent an inordinate amount of time playing around with Excel Spreadsheets. Now I love Excel and could spend hours messing about with it but I don’t have the gall to sit there playing around with Spreadsheets when I should be closing complaints. He does.

After one too many jesters had noticed this, somebody told his Team Manager. He also started asking colleagues to make courtesy calls to customers because he had not been able to ring them before leaving at the end of the day. This is something he used to do with alarming regularity. I made a courtesy call for him once, ended up being shouted at by his furious customer, who had been expecting a call from him all day and refused to do it again next time he asked, sending him into a massive sulk.

After a couple of weeks, Pennywise swapped teams (and, more importantly, desks) with Jessica. This was a welcome change for me and those who sit nearby but not for poor the poor jester who has to sit next to him now.

The week before last, some of my fellow jesters noticed that he was closing a ridiculous number of complaints a day - a ridiculously large number. Pennywise works 8 hours a day. On one of those 8-hour days, he closed 24 complaints.

The usual method of closing a complaint is to telephone the customer, discuss the complaint, tell the customer what you are going to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again, offer a goodwill gesture, have the customer tell you it’s an insult and suggest a figure between 10 times and 100 times what you’ve suggested, haggle a bit, increase your offer and bring the customer round. You can’t close the complaint just then, though. You now have to request the cheque, e-mail various managers (to ensure it doesn’t happen again) and write a closure letter. When you’ve written your closure letter, you have to have it checked by your manager (this can sometimes take several hours). Then you go to the printer, shout “Printing!” at the top of your voice, put letterhead in the printer, print your letter, put it in an envelope with a FOS Leaflet, put it to be posted, go back to your computer, electronically attach the letter to the complaint and then AND ONLY THEN can you close the complaint.

Imagine doing that 24 times in one day. It is impossible.

I have never heard Pennywise shout “Printing!” since he’s been back at work. The jesters in his team do not believe that he has his letters checked. We know for a fact that he doesn’t ring his customers to discuss the complaint because his notes say he does not.

So, what is his manager doing about this? Absolutely nothing and it is infuriating but much, much worse, it is completely demoralising for the rest of the Department. Other jesters are having to speak to his furious customers when they ring back and some of his customers are refusing to speak to him. Some have written in to complain about him. You would think that his manager has more than enough ammunition but she seems either incapable of acting or unwilling.

So we are faced with various scenarios. Pennywise has photographs of our managers in compromising positions – unlikely in the extreme; he has them over a barrel because his doctor has diagnosed him with depression – more likely; or his inflated closure figures are making his manager look good and his team win all the incentives – highly likely. Very, very divisive indeed.

I don’t know what to do here. My instinct is to tell our Customer Service Manager when she gets back from her holiday and, if she does nothing, to go over her head. I think we do need to act but I really don’t know if we will.

Of course, the general frayed tempers are spilling into other areas now. I’m not going to blame it all on Pennywise, however: when you work in a complaints department, tempers are bound to get frayed from time to time: it’s an occupational hazard.

For instance, Mr Grumpy was speaking to a particularly unpleasant customer a couple of days ago, who eventually decided that he didn’t want to speak to Mr G anymore and asked to speak to a manager. There was only one manager in that day (out of 5 in the whole department) and she was unable to take the call. He then asked if a senior jester could take the call. I refused because I didn’t want to speak to the customer and so did another, leaving just one, who did speak to the customer. Mr Grumpy got even grumpier than usual (and I really don’t blame him) and moaned about the manager refusing to take the call and compared her unfavourably to his own manager who was absent.

His views were echoed by the jester who sits next to me. However, on the other side sits the poor lonely manager’s mother, who, understandably got very upset about this and defended her daughter vigorously. It looked like it could turn nasty for a while but good sense prevailed, explanations were offered and accepted and everything was smoothed over.

So things are more than a bit iffy in the Dark Satanic Mill at the moment. There is one way things could be got onto a more even keel, though. The best way, and I hate to say it, is to sack Pennywise.

Jester, Jessina and Ramadan

On Wednesday, Ramadan started. I used to think that Ramadan was simply about not eating between sunrise and sunset during the month. Not so! Last year, I found out from Jawad, a Muslim colleague, that he does not drink, not even plain water, between sunrise and sunset and I’ve since found out that smokers do not smoke and also dirty jokes and foul language have to stop.

Of course, non-Muslim Jesters continue to eat, drink, smoke, swear and tell rude jokes but I don’t think our Muslim colleagues are particularly unhappy about this. I sit next to Jessina and I get on particularly well with her so I decided just before Ramadan that I would have a support role this year. I have promised to keep my language clean and not to tell dirty jokes. I couldn’t promise to keep my thoughts pure, I think that would be an impossibility.

Jessina was delighted and so were some of our other Muslim colleagues. Then another suggested I try fasting for one day. Always game, I agreed and I have said I will fast on October 2nd, 3rd or 4th. I’ve chosen these dates because Mr Jester will be on lates that night and so will not get the opportunity to get annoyed with me and tell me I’m being silly. The sun will have set before he gets home so I can be there eating and drinking when he does.

This will be an interesting experience for me. I’m a very slim jester and have few reserves to fall back on (some of my Muslim colleagues try to lose weight during Ramadan and quite often they succeed). I also find it difficult to go five minutes between snacks without my stomach growling loudly. Also, I’m constantly drinking water. I drink cold and hot water. It’s just a foible of mine (except when I’ve had only 4 hours’ sleep the night before, then I drink coffee, coffee and more coffee).

I’ve already practised not using foul language and not telling dirty jokes and I have been generally successful. I’ve also been able to remind Jessina when she’s come out with the odd swear word. Jessina has been dressing rather soberly since Wednesday. She still looks stunning (she is one of the most beautiful girls I know) but just stunning in a more sober way.

I very nearly said something suggestive to Jessina yesterday and just stopped myself in time. She noticed my obvious distress and when she realised I was bursting to say something rude, she told me to tell Jehan, who is not fasting because she is pregnant, so not only is Jessina beautiful but she is considerate too.

Finally, Jessina and I had a great idea. We have decided that we should all bring in food for Eid. I’ve agreed to bake some Linzer Cookies (I’ve found this recipe online, which is the closest to the version I make but not the same), she is going to bake her chocolate cake and I know other Asian Jesters will bring in some absolutely fabulous food, including Jawad’s wife’s fantastic samboosas, which are the best I’ve ever tasted. We have e-mailed the suggestion that everybody brings in something home-made for Eid to our team manager, who has agreed in principle but has stressed that her only role will be to eat the food and not make it.

I have also made a mental note to get some cards for my colleagues to celebrate Eid.

I hope I’ve got this right:

Ramzaan Mubarak!

Jester and the Bong

When I first joined the Dark Satanic Mill, long ago in the mists of time, the company’s smoking policy was, “don’t smoke in the office. If you want to smoke, do it on the fire escape”. It seemed fair enough to me. There were non-smokers working there who didn’t want their environment polluted and how could I blame them?

For a while, we had a dedicated smoking room but that was consigned to the dustbin of DSM bad ideas and smokers were forced outside, which was obviously a good move. I was a smoker when I first joined up and had been since the tender age of 13, when I lost count of how many cigarettes I had smoked in my lifetime. I gave up on 26 September 2004 and I haven’t smoked a cigarette since then.

After the blanket ban on smoking in public places, the DSM put up a smokers’ shelter, a bit like a small bus shelter with an ashtray in it. It is there that the smokers gather, chat, gossip, bitch and, of course, destroy their lungs and various other organs.

I walk past it on my way from the canteen to the new building, where I now work. It was there that I discovered to my dismay that one of the more pleasant call centre managers, a man I have come to regard as a friend, is a smoker. I’m sorry but I have the zeal of the convert and look down on smokers as lesser beings. It was a bitter disappointment to me and I will have to regale him of tales of people who have died of lung cancer until he gives up, if only to shut me up.

It was also there that a group of younger Asian jesters gathered with a hookah a week or two ago. I wish that I had seen it but unfortunately, I was not in the right place at the right time and didn’t. Apparently they were all gathered round it taking long drags on the mint tobacco that they had brought for the purpose. They even invited a fairly senior member of staff to join them. He demurred.

Unfortunately, somebody got the wrong end of the stick and might even have thought that it contained something less legal than tobacco and so the following e-mail was sent by our MD’s secretary:

All,

It has been noted that there has been smoking outside the designated smoking area. Please be advised that smoking is only allowed inside the smoking shelter and the immediate area in front and not in the bike shed areas.

I would also like to clarify that it is only cigarettes, cigars and small personal pipes that are authorised on the premises and under no circumstances are multiple personal use of bong pipes allowed.

If you have any queries regarding this, please do not hesitate to contact me.

So it’s okay to use crack pipes then.

Jester, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and the Union

It’s still freezing in the Dark Satanic Mill. Well, in our bit it is. Maybe on the floor above it is warmer. After all, they say that hot air rises and in the Complaints Department we produce plenty of it.

The arctic conditions are a particular problem for the skinny Jesters in the team, including Yours Truly (or should I say Yours Sincerely) and Goodwill Jasper, the Gay Ian Paisley. This has become such a problem for Jasper, who doesn’t have a spare inch of flesh on him, that he has contacted the Union and asked them to intervene. The Union has given the Mill two weeks to sort it out or… I’m not sure what.

Jasper is our Union Rep, so I suppose it was the sensible thing to do. It was particularly bad this morning and Jasper spoke to the Union again. This time they have threatened to bring in an external body (presumably to measure the temperature and see how close to Absolute Zero it actually is).

This got Jester’s imagination working overtime. I have a macabre sense of humour at the best of times and I immediately equated cold working conditions and bodies with morgues, so I had to ask Jasper if the refrigeration unit in the local Mortuary had gone and if they were going to move the bodies into our office so they wouldn’t go off.

Several groans later someone told me to shut up and get on with my work. So, another typical day in the Dark Satanic Mill.

Jester and the Discussion Document

I might have mentioned once or twice that, although I maintain a happy demeanour most of the time, I am a part of that unhappy statistic: people who have been diagnosed with depression. I don’t think for a minute that my depression is clinical; in fact I am sure that it has environmental causes, which I might one day write about. My depression is known to my employers and my managers are very good about it. It usually manifests itself in uncontrollable tears but occasionally, I go the other way and blow my top.

Which is how I ended up getting a Discussion Document last week. I usually manage to cope well with stressful situations but if things start piling on me, for instance worrying about Bobbie’s illness (see my previous blog, Jester, Bobbie, her kidneys and the Resource Planner), getting two bad calls in a row and having more work on my list than I can hope to do, I get stressed and, if it’s too bad, I blow my top spectacularly. This is what happened a couple of weeks ago.

I usually sit there brooding about what’s going on for a few minutes and let it all get on top of me. Then I decide I don’t want to work at the Dark Satanic Mill anymore. Then I start packing up my things, turn off my computer, log out of the phone. Then the swearing begins. I’ve done my best to keep foul language out of this blog and I think I’ve succeeded but in real life I swear like a trooper. In fact, I think my language would make a trooper blush, even when I’m in a good mood.

So this series of events unfolded a couple of weeks ago. My manager wasn’t in that day. She would have jumped on it (not me, just the tantrum) very quickly and diffused the situation. The managers who were in are both new to the company and I think they were gobsmacked. My colleagues were either laughing at me (I believe I’m comical when I lose it) or trying to calm me down. Eventually, one of the managers came over and took me into a private room and asked me what was up. By that time, I had vented my head of steam and explained what was going on. She came up with a practical solution, which was to get me on standard complaints for a day to give me some slack. I was then to be off for 5 days (including a weekend, I had already booked the leave) and I would be able to return to work after that ready to resume my normal role.

When my manager and I were both back at work, I got the discussion document. I always thought these were a preliminary in disciplinary proceedings but this didn’t feel like it. It felt much more like a welfare call. She wanted to know what had led to my outburst and how they could have prevented it. I actually felt very repentant and made sure she knew I thought I’d acted badly. I was my judge and jury and she was my psychiatrist.

I think my main regret about the tantrum, though, was Mr Grumpy didn’t witness it. He’s always wanted to see me lose it. The sad thing is, though, I have to be very careful not to lose it again, so I’m hoping he will never see me throw my toys out of the pram.

The Emo, The Area Network Manager and New Brooms

I was never under the illusion that the Dark Satanic Mill has a monopoly on treating its staff in … let’s be kind here and call it … a silly way. In fact, I would go further and say that in a competition between the Dark Satanic Mill and our local Clownstabulary in the let’s-treat-our-employees-in-a-ridiculous-fashion stakes, the local Clownstabulary wins hands down every time. I was, however, under the illusion that maybe other employers (particularly in the private sector) have more idea how to treat their workforces.

 Not so. I was wrong. I collected my daughter, The Emo (she is a Timelord in her spare time – her catchphrase is “saving the Earth with a cup of tea”), from work on Sunday. I’m an indulgent mother and she has me twisted round her little finger, so I run a free taxi service for her. She was  distraught. She works for a national greeting card retailer, a sort of Dark Satanic Paper Mill, but I will call them Eastwoods Cards.

Her particular branch of Eastwoods Cards had had a visit from the Area Network Manager. I am not sure exactly what an Area Network Manager does but I suspect she is senior to the store manager. The Emo told me that the Area Network Manager has decided that the workers in the shops in our home town are too happy and she is going to redistribute the employees round the various shops.

The Emo has a major problem with this. She is perfectly capable at saving the Earth (or some other planet) on a weekly basis over a 13 week run but she is a very shy girl and has great difficulty building up friendships and has taken nearly three years at the shop for her to feel confident about the people she works with. She is now really worried that she is going to have to go through the same slow, laborious  process of making friends again. She also thinks that the idea is plain stupid because it is well known in psychological circles that happy people work better (something the Dark Satanic Mill and the Clownstabulary would do well to recognise).

I explained to her that there is little she can do. None of the workforce belongs to a union so they have nobody to represent them and they will be powerless to stop this going ahead. She will be moved to another shop and will have to start making friends again. The same thing happened to her Dad – he was part of a good team, who were split up around the Division because they did not make enough arrests (my husband likes to do proper police work – going into town on Friday and Saturday and arresting drunks to reach his targets does not give him job satisfaction) or something similar.

I did explain, however, that this Area Network Manager reminds me of our very own, sadly departed, Fat Controller. She, like him, must see herself as a new broom with lots of clever ideas, which she will put into action. She will make a thorough nuisance of herself for a time and make those who report to her hate her and then she will leave, possibly under a cloud, having caused major damage to the workforce’s morale.

It almost made me feel nostalgic.

Llama, Llama

Read this blog and the comments. I read it and laughed. I think you will too! Thanks Inspector Gadget. As usual, you sum up the crazy world in which we live perfectly.

Jester and Bored Retired Ladies

One thing I’ve forgotten to mention in this blog is the welcome return of a retired jester on Monday. I very briefly mentioned her retirement in April but I glossed over it because I had got drunk at her leaving do and kissed (tongues and all) one of the Gay Gordons and I didn’t want to mention it then.

Well, she’s bored and has come back to the Dark Satanic Mill. She is now part-time and does admin in the Complaints Department but it is wonderful to have her back. I didn’t even think of a name for her back in April and I am tired of racking my brains for jester names so she can retain her old nickname from work and will henceforth be known as Goodwill Thora.

Welcome back Thora: we all missed you terribly.

Jester and the Move continued

It’s been an interesting 3 days at the Dark Satanic Mill. On Wednesday I went to work as normal but instead of going to my usual part of the building, I went to the New Building. Now, the New Building has plenty for me to moan about but the main thing really is I hate change. Actually, it’s not so bad after all. They’ve sat me next to Goodwill Josie, who’s great fun and the office is clean and tidy.

It is, however, very cold because, for some reason, nobody can adjust the air conditioning. In fact, I don’t think the word “cold” does it justice; maybe a better word to describe the conditions at the New Dark Satanic Mill would be Arctic. We’ve all been suffering from frostbite and hypothermia. Goodwill Jessica was reduced to sitting on her hands yesterday in an attempt to warm them up enough to type. I have decided that I am going to come into work on Monday in full arctic explorer garb: fleece hat, gloves, scarf, fleece jacket and wind and waterproof jacket. I might even wear my hiking boots with crampons attached. I did ask on Thursday if I could wear my rag coat and hat (I’m a Border Morris Dancer in my spare time) but my manager told me that that is not smart business attire and lent me her jacket, which is.

She also lent Goodwill Josie another manager’s cardigan, which made Josie feel like a granny and she spent the rest of the day saying “Ooh, that’s bonny!” in a granny-like voice.

So, apart from conditions that Sir Ranulph Fiennes would recognise (I keep expecting to see Jeremy Clarkson and James May drive through the office in a large Toyota, swigging Gin and Tonics), what else is there to say about the new office?

Well, the new printer is broken. Some heavy handed Jester slammed the paper drawer in too heavy-handedly and broke bits off it. It now complains loudly every time we print anything, which is about every 5 seconds. It also has to be treated very gently if we want it to print is at all. Jasper has the missing pieces on his desk. It was he who realised the problem and very tenderly gathered up the broken bits to show to IT.

The drinks machine (and I’m convinced it is brand new) does not work. There was a technician working on it most of Thursday and most of yesterday but to no avail. That means we have to go up to the second or third floor to get a drink. I went up to the third floor yesterday (I had not been told the machine on the second floor was working) and my Customer Service Manager (i.e. my manager’s manager) caught me coming down stairs with my cup of hot, brown water. She nearly had a fit on health and safety grounds and asked me to use the lift. I can’t do that because I’m claustrophobic and I think the stairs are the lesser of the two evils, even though they are so open plan that I’m terrified of falling through the non-existent risers. So I trod very carefully indeed.

Talking of claustrophobia, the toilet cubicles are a nightmare. They are tiny and I can’t use one of them because it is about 2′ x 2′ and there is no room for me to cower in a corner, screaming “Let me out, let me out!” The others are a tiny bit bigger. Yesterday, I noticed that one of the soap dispensers had fallen off the wall. I wish I’d had my camera with me; it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen for some time.

Finally, I had intended to run a book on who would spill coffee on the carpet first. Too late, Josie did it yesterday. I’m proud of her!