First performance evaluation at the new job

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
05/25/2016 at 23:52 • Filed to: None

I haven’t been around these parts much now that I’m once again part of the gainfully employed masses. The job starts earlier than I’m used to and I’m pretty exhausted by the end of the day. We’re not allowed to use personal electronic devices when on the clock, so my old habit of checking Jalopnik for new articles a few times per hour had to be dropped.

I sat down with my supervisor today to review my first week of working solo on the phones. We went over the various goals for this position, and it seems that I am pretty close to generating the figures that a seasoned veteran on the job can do, and am currently doing about twice what was expected of me in the first week. I did have a couple of very minor errors to fix, not bad considering that I booked nearly 350 trips last week. These errors didn’t affect the service provided to the customers nor did they cost the company any money, but were easily corrected data entry errors on a couple of canceled bookings.

I’m a rather quiet person that doesn’t like to talk all that much, and I prefer texting and emailing to actually speaking to someone on the phone. Now I’m on the phone nearly 8 hours per day, making travel arrangements for our ADA and medicaid passengers. It takes quite a bit of patience to work this position, but I’ve mellowed in my old age and am not as impatient or high-strung as I used to be. Decades ago I probably couldn’t have done it, but now that I am old and decrepit I can empathize with my customers. I may be exhausted by the time 4:30 rolls around, but at the end of the day I feel fulfilled knowing that I have helped those less fortunate than myself to live a more normal life.

DISCUSSION (4)

E92M3 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
05/26/2016 at 00:36

Good job! I worked a 90% on-the-phone IT help desk job for 3 years. Most of the customers were in a bad mood when they called because something wasn’t working. Some of them even accused us of doing something at corporate to create their issue. Then there were the ones who had a relative that was into computers they called first, and whatever that person told them they insisted was the answer. Once every 4 months (on a rotation), we would get to handle emails for a week and be off the phone. That week was better than Christmas was as a young child. A decade later I still hate talking on the phone. Unless it’s something urgent or important. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > E92M3
05/26/2016 at 00:46

Back when I was in IT I absolutely hated working the help desk. At least at Hughes Aircraft we had staff dedicated to that position, leaving those of us with the more esoteric technical knowledge to actually fix things.

Working IT at a talent agency in Beverly Hills, however, was pure hell, and I did everything within my power to avoid picking up that phone. I tried to have some fun with it, telling some personal assistant that I’d be happy to replace their toner a week from Wednesday. They couldn’t pick up on the humor of what I was saying, whining about how important their boss was to the company and that they were going to report me to the head of IT (who happened to be a good friend of mine from years back during our days at Hughes). Whatever, dude...

TheRealBicycleBuck > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
05/26/2016 at 09:24

I’ve found that IT humor is usually lost on the masses. Although IT isn’t my primary job, I end up dabbling in it just about every day. We don’t have onsite IT personnel, so I am the go-to guy when things get weird.

Last night we replaced our primary server and UPS. I discovered just how heavy a rack-mounted UPS can be. We also reconfigured our router and switches and upgraded the trunk line to our subsidiary office down the road. The banter on the conference call between the IT lady who flew in, our primary IT guys at headquarters, and the network dude from the provider was very esoteric, but hilarious.

IT humor is much better than engineering humor.

E92M3 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
05/26/2016 at 10:35

Oh I hated that part too. “What is your managers name? Wait till they hear Mr. so-and-so can’t get any work done”

The worst part was it usually worked. My managers caved in and suddenly made their small issue the #1 priority over everyone else that had called hours before. People who’s computers wouldn’t even power up, and really COULDN’T get any work done.