Often the stupid shit we see at work is legitimate for reasons above our pay grade, don’t need to know. A manager that will openly and honestly explain those things is a treasure.
Indeed, but sometimes those reasons are legitimately stupid.
Case in point, any call center that wants to optimize handle time. The reason they pick it is because it’s a very easy and straightforward metric to improve.
You just hang up on people. You can make the number go down super easily. Tell them to call back, so they spend two or even three times as long cycling through a new agent each time. Then it’s 3 short 5 to 10 minute calls + time on hold which looks better than one 20 minute call.
Are drive thru restaurants still doing basically the same thing by telling people to pull forward to a parking lot stall, to make it look like their time to complete an order is faster than it actually is?
I’ve only seen that happen when one particular order is waiting on something. It’s a good move because it gets that person out of line so other orders can be filled while they wait instead of holding up the whole line. If they did that to every order they’d just be wasting time making an employee run out to the parking lot every single order and trust me they don’t want to do that.
Yeah. I’ve worked in a few places with drive throughs and that is exactly why they have you pull forward. Some places only tell people with large orders to do that though.
It is fine enough to ask. You may not get the full answer, but you should get enough direction to know the basics of why or how important the request is.
Sometimes it’s for legal reasons. Sometimes it’s for big picture reasons you aren’t privy to. Sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager thinks they’re a genius. And sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager didn’t have a team member say “Hey what about this instead.”
Having fumbled my way into a management position of sorts, I’ve seen all of these. Sometimes I get to say “oh yeah, that works way better, do that instead.” Others, “it sucks but it has to be this way because (big picture stuff)”, and of course “yeah it’s fucking retarded but the powers that be have decreed it, do what you can and enjoy the shit show.”
Often the stupid shit we see at work is legitimate for reasons above our pay grade, don’t need to know. A manager that will openly and honestly explain those things is a treasure.
Indeed, but sometimes those reasons are legitimately stupid.
Case in point, any call center that wants to optimize handle time. The reason they pick it is because it’s a very easy and straightforward metric to improve.
You just hang up on people. You can make the number go down super easily. Tell them to call back, so they spend two or even three times as long cycling through a new agent each time. Then it’s 3 short 5 to 10 minute calls + time on hold which looks better than one 20 minute call.
Are drive thru restaurants still doing basically the same thing by telling people to pull forward to a parking lot stall, to make it look like their time to complete an order is faster than it actually is?
I only get told to pull forward when there’s a queue, and they want to get the person behind me to the window.
I’ve only seen that happen when one particular order is waiting on something. It’s a good move because it gets that person out of line so other orders can be filled while they wait instead of holding up the whole line. If they did that to every order they’d just be wasting time making an employee run out to the parking lot every single order and trust me they don’t want to do that.
Yeah. I’ve worked in a few places with drive throughs and that is exactly why they have you pull forward. Some places only tell people with large orders to do that though.
It is fine enough to ask. You may not get the full answer, but you should get enough direction to know the basics of why or how important the request is.
Sometimes it’s for legal reasons. Sometimes it’s for big picture reasons you aren’t privy to. Sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager thinks they’re a genius. And sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager didn’t have a team member say “Hey what about this instead.”
Having fumbled my way into a management position of sorts, I’ve seen all of these. Sometimes I get to say “oh yeah, that works way better, do that instead.” Others, “it sucks but it has to be this way because (big picture stuff)”, and of course “yeah it’s fucking retarded but the powers that be have decreed it, do what you can and enjoy the shit show.”