‘GREAT! I don't want to work after hours': Beancounters nearly lose $100,000+ after abandoning clients after hours because they corners on company phones for tech support staff to save $50/month

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  • 01
    Font - r/r/MaliciousCompliance u/A-Wise-Cobbler 10 hours ago Posted by Let's save $50 a month on a cellphone bill and risk causing 6 figures in operational damage and damage our reputation with paying customers instead LOC
  • 02
    Organism - First. I love working for this company. Honestly, I really do. It's a GREAT company. GREAT culture. This is just simply an example of bean counters looking to save $50 a month getting things so horribly wrong at times
  • 03
    Product - they cause 6 figures of lost productivity and damage reputation with paying customers. Even after it happens. There is no change in policy. I joined a new company in Jan of this year before working for them as a consultant.
  • 04
    Font - During my onboarding I had asked the hiring manager if I would be provided with a company cellphone or be able to expense out my monthly cellphone bill. He looked into it and HR told him "This particular position is not eligible for a company cellphone as it does not require after hours support"
  • 05
    Font - This answer actually made sense. I don't need to get involved in day to day operations support in my role. They also LITERALLY never called me once during my whole tenure as a consultant after hours. So. GREAT! I don't want to work after hours.
  • 06
    Font - Up until last week that policy was upheld. Just like it had been during my time as a consultant. There was never a "We were trying to reach you yesterday" when I logged in the next day or any emails asking for my help after hours.
  • 07
    Font - So I was loving it. I want to repeat. This is not a dig towards the company. They upheld their end of the bargain this whole time. But here is the MC part of this story.
  • 08
    Font - I have no cellphone number listed in my email signature nor on my internal company profile. Because hey I don't have a company cellphone. I have a desk phone but that's it.
  • 09
    Font - I talk with a lot of IT vendors in my role and I don't need them calling my personal line. I also did not install Outlook on my personal phone or any company apps. So last week. A major update
  • 10
    Font - was applied to one of the platforms that fall under my purview. The actual maintenance is performed by an operations manager and their team. Things went smooth in our QA/Test environment, I signed off, my boss signed off, so everything was ready set and go.
  • 11
    Font - Major update goes in. Someone incorrectly performed a few steps. Even though that same person performed them just fine in QA. Things started going wrong. Horribly wrong.
  • 12
    Font - I was nowhere to be found. I wasn't responding to emails. I had no phone number listed anywhere. So they did the troubleshoot on their own.
  • 13
    Font - In hindsight the fix was relatively simple and I definitely would have been able to guide the team. The error wasn't even related to the update. They just went down a completely different path to resolve the issue thinking the update was the root cause. It would've taken a few hours but we would've fixed it.
  • 14
    Font - But in the moment as things were going wrong, in panic and trying to recover from the incorrectly performed steps they somehow wiped the database. SOMEHOW. Please do not ask me how. The backup was corrupted in this process as well and they couldn't use it to recover. Dear god.
  • 15
    Handwriting - They had to go pull tape backups, which is excruciatingly slow to recover from and a week old. Monday morning I log into my laptop and I notice the holy that is going on.
  • 16
    Font - Get on a call with the operations manager. Operations manager is levelheaded no blame is thrown. Again. As I said. Great company. Great culture. Asks what happened to me. I told him I have no company phone. I asked for it and they said no. He just had to shake his head. Organizationally he and I are at the same level. He just has a reporting structure and I do not.
  • 17
    Font - My boss and I got on a call for a debrief and he asked the same question. I gave the same answer. No company phone. He's the one that told me my position was ineligible for a company phone as I was not required for after hours support.
  • 18
    Font - All told it took the team 5 days to recover everything. Re-run all the transactions that were lost from the source systems. Another 1.5 days for the business teams to validate all was well and match up the numbers.
  • 19
    Font - My boss did ask me if I had a personal cellphone. I tell him no. I do but it's the principle of the whole thing. As I said I deal with a lot of external vendors now. I don't need them bothering me on my personal line. During business hours we communicate over teams, zoom, Webex and my landline never gets used as I'm barely in the office.
  • 20
    Font - He didn't question me further. So all in all about 7 days of lost system access, productivity, operational reporting, inability to efficiently serve customers, inability to efficiently deploy front line employees, etc. etc. etc.
  • 21
    Font - One of the business directors was still putting together the operational impact but he figured it was easily 6 figures. All over $50 for a monthly cell phone bill for a bunch of corporate employees who they might need to call once in a blue moon.
  • 22
    Font - The funny part is a majority of IT is eligible for a cell phone because they are required for after hours support. I estimate maybe 60 of us across all of IT aren't eligible due to our roles. Bean counters. Gotta love them.
  • 23
    Rectangle - Willing Impact841 8 min. ago It should have been: at the end of the day, the company gave me a company cell phone.
  • 24
    Rectangle - Coolbeanschilly - 9 hr. ago It sounds like the bean counters made the wrong call.
  • 25
    Corded phone - 1408 |||| 30 CONTACTS CE CALL LOO MESSAGE PORS rov OK WXYZ ADSET PHONE/EXIT ccc NFERENCE (-( TRANSFER (+ DROP

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