Friday the 13th: Office Terror
Posted Mar 13, 2009 Problem Behaviors
∞ With a nod to the calendar, I’d like to share a workplace horror story, and invite you - through comments or links to your own blog posts - to share yours.
I once was responsible for a team of people who handled first-line customer contact in a high-risk area for several clients. Our training was extensive and ongoing, as giving the wrong answer or handing out the wrong information could result in a big cost to our clients (which is why they paid us - to take the risk for them).
I hired a man who had an extensive and distinguished customer service background. He was definitely qualified, and said he liked the idea of having as his purpose standing in defense of our clients, which is how I described the position when I explained the importance of what we did. As it turns out, however, he didn’t like having to withhold information and leave our clients’ customers in the dark about certain things.
Now, I’m not saying we worked for shady companies. Remember, this was a high-risk area, so if certain things were to be disclosed, we insisted that they be disclosed by an attorney. Our employee, however, felt that any good customer service agent should provide all of the information customers are asking for, without hesitation.
We had a couple of near misses at the start, but he fell in line and apparently suffered in silence for about a year. Then he became very vocal about his disagreement with the “horrible service expectations” we imposed on our staff. We explained again - several times - that the point behind our arrangement was to avoid losing money. Buckets of money. Many, many, buckets of money.
Things came to a head when he finally decided he was mad as hell and wasn’t gonna take it anymore. He resigned.
Not professionally with a letter addressed to me and our HR rep. Not after an argument with me about why he refused to work to my expectations anymore. No. I found out about his resignation when I read the email he sent around lunch time - addressed to me, his entire team, and many representatives and managers at many clients’ offices - stating that “today will be my last day with this company.” The email went on to scold those involved for participating in such an awful program.
And then he seemed surprised when I met him at his desk with security behind me to show him the door, as if I was going to let him work the rest of the day. Your last day? You got that right, buddy.
The only sign that something wasn’t quite right with him? As we ushered him out the door, he asked me in a tone that indicated nothing was wrong whatsoever: “Oh, by the way, my wife is apparently throwing me some huge party for the big three-oh. It just wouldn’t be a big celebration without you. Think you can make it?”
Don’t ask me how long it took to clean up the fallout from the nuclear explosion that email caused. Seriously. Just don’t.
What are some of your frightening office tales? ∞
