Friday 17 February 2012

The Formal Warning

I worked in a call centre for 6 months when I was 22.


She asks, “Do you know why you’re here?” and I go for dumb rather than philosophy and reply, “No”.

Clearing her throat, she looks to the file and reads: “Yesterday afternoon at 2pm, you, Teresa Stenson, asked myself, Valerie Brown, your team leader, for permission to leave your shift at 5.15pm – which is 15 minutes earlier than your scheduled finish time of 5.30pm. The reason cited was that your Mother was in hospital and you wanted to catch an earlier bus in order to make visiting hours. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“I, Valerie Brown, agreed to this on the condition that at 5.15pm the level of incoming calls were either Low or Moderately Low – and certainly not Moderate or Critical, and you, Teresa Stenson verbally agreed to this condition.”

“Yes.”

“At 5.20pm yesterday afternoon I returned from my break to see firstly that you had vacated your work station for the day, and secondly that call levels were at Moderate – evidence of which I have here in a printed Call Volume Report. When this document is cross referenced with your movements as tracked by your electronic swipe card, and supported by several eye-witness accounts from your colleagues, it is clear that you switched your headset to ‘Unavailable’, logged out and swiped out of this building 5.15pm during a period of Moderate call levels. I have no choice but to give you a formal warning.”

"K."

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Okay, so, my Mother wasn’t in hospital, but that is so not the point.


Ever been told off for a ridiculous reason? Do share.


9 comments:

Miles said...

I was once told off by a manager for being rude to a customer, until the manager realised it wasn't actually me that had been rude, but another manager. You may know the people involved ;-)

Teresa Stenson said...

It's familiar... HA! I loved that. I was outside the office, I remember your face when you came out. There was absolutely no egg on it.

Valerie O'Riordan said...

Working in a bookshop in Chicago, I went home early once - having asked permission - because I felt absolutely rotten. I had this weird rash and was feverish and generally looked like shit, and it all came on quite suddenly. Next shift I was on, I heard the dude who'd let me go early (NOT a manager) bitching to the manager about how I hadn't 'told him in advance that I'd be going home sick' and that she should 'keep an eye on me.' Luckily she also thought he was an ass and told him to get a life.

Teresa Stenson said...

Eugh, bloody jobsworths. I hope you've mastered the art of prediciting when your body is going to get a fever for any future episodes!

Dan Purdue said...

At school, I got told off and sent to see the headmaster because I laughed when a bright green shield bug flew in through the window and landed right on the end of my friend's nose. It genuinely was the funniest thing I'd ever seen, particularly when he went cross-eyed to look at it.

As punishment, I had to write out "I will not be disruptive in class" 100 times. Needless to say, I have borne a grudge against nature in all its forms ever since...

Rachel Fenton said...

I was always getting told off for stupid things, lots at school. Our science block had sinks all in a line under the windows on the ground floor. I was washing my equipment when a truanter rode up on his bike and leaned against the window with one palm. The window pane came in and I caught it - huge bloody window, btw - and the teacher shouts, "Rachel, put that window back at once and get on with your work!"
There's also the time I got called "evil" for pushing a stem of grass through the wasted ink cylinder of a broken biro - but it was worth it, the ink looked magical with the sunlight shining through it....oh woman, the memories are flowing now!

Teresa Stenson said...

Dan - I just Googled 'green shield bug' to make sure I could really imagine the scene fully. Excellent - of course you'd laugh at that. Not now though, now you'd swat it with gusto immediately. Your punishment made me think of The Simpsons opening credits.

Rachel - what a brilliant image, you there holding a huge pane of glass. Being called 'evil' for the grass/pen/sunlight thing reminded me about a teacher calling a boy in my class a 'pervert' for spraying deodrant on himself in the middle of a latin lesson. He did spray quite lot of it, but still, a pervert?

Dan Purdue said...

I guess it depends where he was spraying it...

Teresa Stenson said...

Oh. Oh yeah. Oh.

No, I'm pretty sure it was all above the waist.