Upstate Guy put a moratorium on new work last Wed. He had perfectly good justification with four projects on his plate and RFP that he was asked by Capt More-on to review. Of course when asked why he was addressing the RFP by Capt More - on, he was obligated to say, because you told me too. So you see what we are dealing with here.
So I diligently changed the rotation for those kinds of orders and put UPstate guy at the end and put FL Girl and NYC guy in the first two slots, NC Guy, then Myself, then Upstate guy.
That worked wonderfully from Wednesday until today.
NYC Guy send me an IM that says, "maxed out - no more orders".
No explanation, no justification. Just that.
I will work with anyone in a situation. But this just PISSED ME OFF. I am not good when I am being dictated too like that.
So I told him that he is leaving me in the lurch and what has he got that is so blank blank important that he can make that statement and not justify it.
So I drafted an email.
Then I went back and reviewed Update Guy, FL Girl and NYC guys Workload. I noticed that NYC Guy had twice as much as FL girl in this area.
So I pinged her on IM and explained this unique position. She, always coming to my rescue, said to "bring it on".
Now I know that can't be indefinite so I have to put some reasonable controls in place. I am NOT taking this above me for any reason whatsoever. Lordy - I would stll be having THAT conversation from this morning.
So I retrieve my drafted email and come up with this one:
"Look, we are in a bind. I know that our volumes are slightly above average but they are manageable. We all know why that is too. We need to tell the customer’s when their due dates are out of whack more often and I will be rejecting orders as needed moving forward for poor due dates without expedites.
That’s the long term solution.
For the short term:
Starting today – there will be no holds on orders unless you are on an approved project. At this point, because of “holds” due to perceived volume I am down to ONE person working voice. With the volumes that come in, this isn’t acceptable.
At this point, Upstate Guy has projects that need to complete. He and I have been in constant contact regarding this and his workload has been justified as a project and his time table to resume day to day orders is Friday of this week.
NYC Guy does have the next highest volume and to give him a chance to clear that up, he won’t be assigned orders until Friday.
ALL orders will start coming to the mailbox – NYC GUY, make arrangements with Business unit P by end of next week to start routing their work through the mailbox, I will make sure you are the primary so you will still work that stuff and it will just be for managing purposes. I simply cannot judge what your workloads are if the orders aren’t coming through here.
Anyone else who is receiving orders from an alternate source, please make the same arrangements.
Please confirm when completed.
If you are taking an order that has not come through the mailbox YET from the Voice or data teams…. Please send a note to the mailbox and advise me so I can make sure that it gets routed properly to you.
Clear your decks folks. Friday the rotation starts with the following orders:
In this order:
Upstate Guy, NYC guy, FL Girl, NC Guy, Contessa for toll free voice in that order
NYC Guy, FL Girl, Borough Girl will be trained to offload some of this, NC Guy and Contessa for Dedicated Voice
Upstate Guy, Borough Girl, Contessa, NC Guy, FL Girl, NYC Guy for discos
Contessa, FL Girl, Borough Girl, NC Guy, NYC Guy for data.
I do NOT want this back in Capt Moron's court or he will be assigning orders and believe me WE DO NOT WANT THAT.
FL Girl will cover through Friday so Upstate Guy and NYC Guy can catch up
Please guys, help me out here.
Thanks, The Contessa"and that's how we tentatively solved the great workload problem of First Quarter 2007.
1 comment:
This is why I'm glad I don't manage people. There is work and it must be done, and the allocation of said work is rarely completely fair. But, well, there is work and it must be done.
It sounds like you insisted on better communication. Excellent work - the only way to make sure people are happy and productive is to have them tell you about problems or concerns as they're happening. Having been involved in a flurry of "this was wrong!" emails lately, I can say that the part where everyone seeks to place blame is absolutely ridiculous.
I hope your short term solution works beautifully!
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