Politics

A good friend of mine received a letter of complaint from a co-worker. She takes care of the initial solution to their clients' problems and was asked by a consultant to do something beyond her scope of responsibility, which she verified several times with her co-worker. The end result, as is th case when people take their work on a personal level was a complaint from that co-worker.

Since she was vying for a higher position, she was, of course, threatened by the complaint and had asked em to help her craft her response to what was being instigated in the complaint. After mulling over the whole situation, here's what we came up with:


Dear _________,

I received your letter regarding the incident report filed by (jealous co-worker) on 19 August 2005.
On 6 August 2005, I received a call from Miss customer who informed me that she ran the Anti-Spyware and Ad-Aware on Safemode several times in her computer in order to remove pop up ads. However, the customer was frustrated since the Pop-up was still in her computer despite the initial troubleshooting done by the previous agent.
I checked the security settings – firewall, anti-virus and windows update. I called (jealous co-worker) and was initially advised by Mr. Jealous co-worker to download program. When I got back to the customer, Mr. Jealous co-worker called out to inform me not to download program and instead do a system restore. I overheard Another co-worker and the other Department representatives advising Mr. jealous co-worker that we, are not allowed to install program, which I knew from the very beginning. At this time, Ms. Customer became very irate.
I followed his instructions. However, this did not solve the problem since the last system restore was done in May and System restore will only work if the system was infected by spyware recently. I assisted the customer in cleaning up the malicious files in the Add and Remove Programs and registry editor, particularly the Run key and BHOs. When we restarted the computer for the third time, the spyware was still in the system due to ABI Network which can only be removed by program. In addition, the customer was receiving pop ups ads and error messages. After almost two hours of troubleshooting and verifying the procedures with Mr. Jealous co-worker, I followed his instruction and downloaded program. After downloading the program, Ms Customer gave me her permission to close the case and verified with the customer if she was satisfied. She said yes.

On 12 August 2005, Ms. Customer called again to ask for assistance in downloading another program and sent an email to confirm that the issue was resolved thereafter.

On the offense against Policies and Procedures:

I believed, and as documented on the case, I followed the necessary troubleshooting steps. I brought the matter to the attention of our department because I found out that Ms. Customer has an ABI Network installed in her computer that can only be removed by program which is outside my support boundary.

I did verify with Mr. Jealous co-worker the procedures I am supposed to take several times. I verified with him if the call should be escalated. This was because I wanted to make sure that I’m following the procedures and the problem is resolved for the customer since at that time, we did not have a protocol on removing spyware for our customers. I am unable to recall the number of times I approached Mr. Jealous co-worker asking about downloading program. Once again, I was doing this to make sure that the matter is resolved for the customer in the most efficient manner. Since I am being asked to do something I am not trained nor authorized to do, I kept on verifying this with him since he is the one trained to handle such matters. I was not arguing with Mr. Jealous co-worker. As stated, I was merely verifying his instructions since downloading MyPC Tune-up is outside my support boundary.

I tagged the case as resolved only after the customer had downloaded the program and only after Ms. Customer gave her permission for me to do so. Ms. Customer also stated that she was satisfied with the resolution.

As for what I said about my AHT, I apologize if it sounded like I was escalating the call and not taking ownership of it. I wanted to bring to the attention of Mr. Jealous co-worker that the call is unnecessarily taking long since I knew that downloading program is the only way to resolve the matter. I also wanted him to note that the customer is irate since none of the steps we have been going through is solving the problem. In fact, I stayed with the caller for about two hours precisely because I wanted to resolve the issue for the customer.

On the offense against team members and co-employees:

I would like it noted that Meriam-Webster defines harassment as to irritate or torment persistently and to impede and exhaust an enemy by repeated attacks or raids. Whereas Mr. Jealous co-worker may have been irritated by my numerous questions, I was asking them to verify that I am following the correct procedures and I was doing that in order to help the customer and not with the intention of irritating nor tormenting him. It was not my intention to irritate or torment him persistently nor attack him in any way. I also believe that by verifying procedures with Mr. jealous co-worker, I did not prevent him from doing his work normally, infringe on his rights as an employee of Company. In fact, I believe I am incapable of harassment.

****

In the end, my friend "won" the battle and Mr. jealous co-worker received a sanction.

In the end, this corporate setting is merely a reflection of what goes on in our everyday lives. People don't like being questioned, particularly if they hold higher positions. But then, if no one "checks" on those in the leadership role, who else will? If our so-called leaders are left to manage us and we remain passive receipients of their every whim, where are we to generate new ideas? Where are we to exercise our reason, our rights and our responsibility? We will all be left to rot in a hellhole of our own making.