| Topic Name: |
Victim of smear campaign? |
| Message Name: |
Politics over customers |
| Date Posted: |
07/22/2003 |
| In Reply To: |
One of my family members had been working at a bank for the past 2 years. About a year ago, after a re-org, he found himself working for this 27 year old manager with whom he did not get along. Although his clients loved him, she decided that she didn't like him and would get rid of him. After one minor incident (involving a client misunderstanding, which the client took ultimate resposibility for), she filed formal charges with the HR dept, and had him put on probation. At the same time he retained a lawyer, just in case. Recently, at his annual review, his probation was extended, and his top reviews from a year ago were now at the other extreme, with comments from the HR complaint copied/pasted into the review. Today, he was laid off by the company for 'budget reasons' with a crappy severance package. He has testimony from other colleagues and clients that he was doing an exceptional job, and i think he has good grounds to sue. Even if he doesn't i think it's ridiculous that this one manager can taint his record (making it difficult to find a new job). Has anyone had this kind of experience? Advice? Outcomes? |
| Message: |
I had a very similiar experience. I was informed by an agency that I work through that the client company was no longer interested in my services. Which was more than a little odd because I just had a great review a few days prior with my supervisor. The only possible reason mentioned by the agency was because I was stuck on a long call today which I actually handled precisely as I should have; the customer had multiple issues (each very time-consuming) I solved all of them and she was actually very happy at the end of the call (like most of my clients). The customer was very nice but extremely non-technical and so everything took at least twice as long as it should have. I documented the entire call thoroughly in the help desk system. Of course I maintained my professionalism (as always) throughout the entire call.
Being dismissed for one long call seems a little extreme, especially for the new people (I and many others had been there about one month). My call statistics had been on par with all the other new people. I should also say I have had several requests from customers to send a compliment to my supervisor, even on my last day I had two customers who wanted to know how to call me directly for future assistance. I was about 85% comfortable with the trouble-shooting aspects of the job. I often provided help to my co-workers which they greatly appreciated. I was hoping for a future with the organization, leading to a supervisory role at some point. I have enough experience and technical aptitude as well as the people-skills to legitimately express those interests.
It seems like a loss for the company because my first "soft skills" quality evaluation was better than many experienced techs according to my supervisor. I was under the impression (told to us in training and afterwards) that our call statistics would not be used for evaluation purposes for at least a month (someone misled us, even my own supervisor told me on last week not to worry about stats for a little while). At the very least I feel some feedback on the call would have been appropriate, to perhaps learn where the call may have been improved technically or otherwise. That only seems fair.
I liked the work a lot, perhaps I will look into joining one of their competitors.
I think this circumstance is unusual in that considering my performance and potential this dismissal would just come out of the clear blue over one call. I spoke to my attorney to see if this is legal, especially if different standards are being applied to temps vs. perms. Unfortunately NY is an "at-will" state, so unless you have a contract or are in a union an employer can fire you for any reason, or no reason at all, except for things like race (which are mostly unproveable anyway).
Feel free to forward this to anyone who may be interested. This a very large well-known public media company on Long Island (NY).
Thank you.
My e-mail is jstewart_nyc@yahoo.com
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