Stupidest rules your job has

[CellPhoneSlave]

They tried to enforce it on me

I work at a call center for prepaid cell phones.. I sit at a computer and do mind numbing work all day.

Now, I have add and because of that I can't just sit and stare at the computer.. I have to be doing something else so I can concentrate on my calls.

When I first started there, I bought a gameboy so I can keep my hands busy. I have it every single day and i have had no problems about it... Until a couple of months ago.

The operations manager called me over and said that if i had it on the floor again I would get written up.. stating that it was a rule... I dont understand what it hurts, the sound is down, there is no way I can put customers information on it and if I have to, I put it down and do my job


I then tore him a new one,explaining that I have add and if he wants me to continue doing the great job I do, I will have my game boy and he will not do anything about it.....



They havent said anything yet.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I The main reason for this is that many contain (or used to) a topless girl on page three (known as page three girls, oddly enough).

Rapscallion

Thought that was just the Sun, the Star and possibly the People? If I take a paper, I read the Mirror, mainly cuz of there not being any page 3 girls. Plus it has cartoons.

Re: not being able to leave the premises on 15 minute breaks; we have that rule too, but seeing as it takes about 5 minutes to go upstairs, grab your things then go downstairs, there's no point. I just run up as quick as possible so I've got enough time to drink a coffee. And it would take about 5 minutes to walk into town, in any case.

[Polenicus]

I've found most bad rules fall into two categories:

1. Knee-jerks: Something happens that's bad, and management immediately implements a policy on it. This policy is often not well thought out, and the full ramifications of it don't become apparent until much later, when it starts getting abused or creates bottlenecks.

2. The 'what if' policies: Someone in management sees something, and says 'Hmmm... someone somewhere could theoretically be offended by this!' or something in that vein. There's no actual hard reason for the rule beyond this. Again these rules are not thought out, and tend to cause far more problems than they cure (Often what they 'cure' has never actually happened).

In my job in a call center (My last customer-facing job) we had a lot of problems with #1. Not in dealing with customers though, but with dealing with other techs.

I was in Tier 2, and the problem was that on BOTH sides of the fence were lazy, irresponsible people who abused the system. We had a number of Tier 2 agents who would simply refuse to take calls. Problems would be escalated to them that were absolutely their responsibility, and they'd push them back with some pat answer about steps to try that they knew wouldn't work.

This was bad, and management was aware of it. So naturally, the correct course of action, since these cases were documented and the techs names were all in the tickets, would be to sit down with the Tier 2 agent involved, and proceed along the corrective discipline path until either the behaviour was corrected, or their unfortunate termination. Right?

WRONG!

Instead, let's create a blanket policy that says if a call is being made to Tier 2 for the second time, regardless of the reason for that call, the Tier 2 agent MUST take the call.

So, naturally there are lazy, irresponsible agents in Tier 1 as well. Upon hearing this new policy, they started to call Tier 2 on EVERY CALL. And once their issue is pushed back, they call back IMMEDIATELY.

So I would get calls that sounded like this:

"Tier 2 Polenicus, how can I help you?... uh huh, they can't connect? Okay, what's happening?... You don't know. What did the customer say?... You didn't ask. Okay, what does it say on their account?... You didn't pull it up. Have you even confirmed this is one of our customers?... No, but it's your second call to Tier 2. Okaaay... well, send it on up!"

Next came the issue with call times. We had a few instances where the call center would go into que... more than a few callers in que was bad for our stats (Which determined how much the companies we did support for paid us). To help out, there was a provision where supervisors could ask a few Tier 2 agents to log into the Tier 1 que and take calls to help clear things up. This was intended to help on slower days where an extra 5 agents would help (Like Sundays or whatnot).

Naturally, when you have 100+ agents on the phone and a que of 30+ people, 5 agents aren't going to help much.

But this didn't stop them. In fact, this became a nightly occurrence, because every night around 8pm, the calls would die off and we'd end up with agents idle. The supervisors would send them home in droves. And then every night at 8:30, we'd get slammed with calls. This was the normal call flow, and the reason we had so many excess agents on in the first place (Even our crappy scheduling software had figured this out!). So the 5 or 6 Tier 2's on duty would be put on Tier 1 calls, and badgered when we couldn't clear out a 30 caller que by ourselves.

And instead of getting better, this got worse, until many Tier 2's with daytime shifts would spend their entire shifts doing Tier 1 calls. Until 3/4's of the department simply walked out.

That rule was never stricken, but it was seldom used after that.

The next fun one was the OEM rule (OEM meaning 'Original Equipment Manufacturer'). Basically, any time something was beyond our power to fix (We did internet support and only internet support, so if monitor is fuzzy, you gotta take it to the shop, that sort of thing).

However, some of our Tier 1 agents abused this, sending legitimate problems we could and should fix to the OEM, who bounced them back to us. This was a combination of laziness, ignorance and inexperience.

Easy to fix, right? Put in some supplimental training to show Tier 1's what a legitimate OEM referral is, have them possibly ask a floor lead before OEMing a call, possibly writing up some criteria to follow, etc. Right?

WRONG!

All OEM calls are immediately escalated to Tier 2.

ALL OEM calls.

So if some lady called in with a broken toaster and just had the wrong number, the call was escalated to Tier 2. These callers were also not to be told that they were being escalated for a referral. They were being sent to a 'resolution specialist'. Naturally, they thought that meant we would resolve their issue.

So our call que became CHOKED with customers who (After waiting 10-15 minutes in some cases) thought that we were going to fix their problem, only to tell them what it would have taken the Tier 1 rep 30 seconds to do.

But it gets BETTER!

If Tier 2 was too busy to take the call, the OEM referral was paper escalated. So we could call the customer BACK in 2-3 days to tell them they have to take their busted toaster back to Wal Mart. We had to create a seperate TEAM to handle these calls!

All the while the LEGITIMATE Tier 2 problems; Corrupt winsock, bad registry entries by our software, spyware issues, etc. were going for on average a week before being responded to.

Which mean the company had to promote DOZENS more techs to Tier 2, at the higher pay scale and guaranteed full-time with benefits.

For some reason, they don't do internet tech support at that call center anymore :P

[tollbaby]

I wanna work in a call centre I miss it! (just not the telemarketing. That, I hated!) Maybe that's what kind of job I try to get for my free weekends.

[Kelly Lynne]

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet...

When we're calling for a clean up of spilled liquids, we can't use the word "immediately" over the PA.

Of course, that means the janitors take their sweet time to get to the spill in question and clean it up.

Is there a rule against using "now" "quickly" "right away" or "as soon as possible"? (I'd keep coming up with new synonyms until they get sick of banning them all.

[Gurndigarn]

Oh, how did I forget this one?

The stupidest rule I ever encountered was back when I was a McSlave. If a supervisor told you anything-- including food orders-- the response had to be "Thank You". Spoken with Capital Letters. "OK" was out. So was "Sure thing, boss!" Nope, it was "Thank You!" even if they were chewing you out.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I always hated (and broke) the rule about no drinks at the register. At BN you cannot leave the cashwrap if you're the only one there, and in my old store, when it's slow there's often only one person on register with a floor person assigned to backup when needed, and an extra manager's drawer that anyone can ring on in case it gets busy. We might straighten up the gift section or the front of bargain, but we had to stay where we could see the registers. So if I'm expected to stand up there for sometimes 3-4 hours before I get a break, I at least need to have something to drink. Especially since the humidity tends to be kept low because of the books so you get very dry. Everyone always had drinks and every time they tried to enforce the rule we'd remind them of the reality so finally they changed it to no drinks except water and it has to be in a closeable container to avoid spills, and we were supposed to duck down or turn away so we weren't drinking right in front of the customers. Which are both perfectly reasonable.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Oh, how did I forget this one?

The stupidest rule I ever encountered was back when I was a McSlave. If a supervisor told you anything-- including food orders-- the response had to be "Thank You". Spoken with Capital Letters. "OK" was out. So was "Sure thing, boss!" Nope, it was "Thank You!" even if they were chewing you out.

Good Lord, that's cerebrum-melting dumb

Manager: Flip those burgers faster, dammit! Salt those fries! And I want to see some hustle at the shake machine!
You: thank you
Manager: That doesn't cut it! Capital letters!
You: Thank You!

[Ringtail Z28]

In my current job, if I was physically attacked while on the clock I would immediately lose my job. Wal-Mart and Target don't even have that stupid rule.

[Gurndigarn]

You: thank you
Manager: That doesn't cut it! Capital letters!
You: Thank You!

That's about the size of it. Yes, it was dumb. I just want to know what had happened to cause that rule, because I'm having trouble picturing any one-- even one of my old McManagers-- doing it just for the ego trip.

Never mind. I can picture the ego trip, even though I personally don't suspect any of the people working right then of being that bad.

[toomanycalls1]

At my place

We are temporarily down to 1 break room while the secondary one is being remodeled.

Management has refused to let us use the conference room saying they don't want the mess,

So I challenged the site president and said give it a week.

Put up signs to clean up after yourself.

It was fine. End of week managers had a party to celebrate a promotion and guess who left it a mess?

So the managers got chewed out and we can use the conference room.

[Arcade Man D]

Ah, I forgot another one. Apparently, we may not have food at the redemption counter. Never mind that we are supposed to stay on the floor and the counter is the only place where we can set food down while we're eating ((one employee, therefore no breaks)) that we can see the whole store.

The reason I was given? "A vegetarian might be offended."

[AirHostess]

the airline is strict about grooming and apperance even though we have a scruffy looking uniform! I expect they will be very strict when our new, smart uniform comes in.

Female cabin crew must wear minimum make up of mascara, blusher and lipstick.

[AFpheonix]

Oh, how did I forget this one?

The stupidest rule I ever encountered was back when I was a McSlave. If a supervisor told you anything-- including food orders-- the response had to be "Thank You". Spoken with Capital Letters. "OK" was out. So was "Sure thing, boss!" Nope, it was "Thank You!" even if they were chewing you out.

Am I the only one who thought of Kevin Bacon in Animal House yelling "Please sir, may I have another?" during a hazing ritual?

[Dave1982]

At my supermarket job, we had a couple "knee jerk" rules that were absolutely retarded, both implemented by the same GM (the third of 3 I had while working there).

#1: No sitting on milk crates, even after the store was closed.

It had been standard procedure while breaking down (their term for facing/blocking) aisles to grab and empty milk crate from the dairy department to use as a step-stool for reaching deep into the top shelves, and for sitting on so you wouldn't have to kneel (VERY painful on a hard floor!) to do the bottom shelves. Well this guy declared that there would be no more sitting on the crates. At all. Standing ont hem was fine, but we couldn't sit because it didn't look "professional." AND no sitting on the floor either.

And I found out the hard way that he forbade this after close as well, which was untterly retarded. And this from a guy who would routinely light up a cigar IN THE STORE once all the customers were gone, despite the fact that this violated both company policy AND sate law.

#2 Every customer with a 2+ carraige order HAD to be helped outside, no exceptions under any circumstances.

This I think might have happened because a big wig who was visiting the store saw a customer struggle to get outside with two carts unassisted. In theory, this is a good rule, but there were two problems.

•We were woefully understaffed, so leaving the bagging area to help someone outside meant that the next person in line didn't have anyone but the cashier to do all the bagging. We were effectively trading one customer service problem for another.

•More to the point, there were some people who would refuse help, but the GM said we had to help anyway. I outright asked him what to do if a customer declined help and he said "Help them anyway!"

This of course went to hell in handbasket in short order, when people would loudly refuse help, we'd either have to force ourselves upon them, or get yelled at by the GM for not helping (if we were caught). One time I was coming back into the building from helping one person and saw a guy heading out by himself with two carts. I offered to help him, and he refused, angrily. I tried teo help anyway, and he shouted "NO THANKS!" so I just went back in, only to have the GM (who was watching from his bird's eye view office) get on the overhead page and say "DAVE1982!!!!!! CUSTOMER!!!" and gesture wildly at the guy I'd just "failed" to help. I turned to go back to him, but he was already out the door, so I waited a couple seconds, then went back, looked up towards the GM's office, shrugged, and said "he didn't want help!" I could hear the GM sigh from 40 feet away, and later was told that I needed to help these people, despite the fact that they declined help. "They'll appreaciate it in the end" he told me. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight