‘Your job is not to coach people’: Boss tells front desk employee to stop helping customers with their mistakes, regrets it when chaos ensues with incorrectly filed forms

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"Only stamp the forms that are complete." So I stopped fixing them first.

I used to work at a front desk where people brought in forms all day.
Most forms had tiny mistakes. Missing date. Signature in the wrong box. One checkbox skipped. Normal stuff. I would point it out before stamping so they could fix it and avoid coming back later.
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One supervisor hated that. He said, "Your job is not to coach people. Only stamp the forms that are complete." Alright.
So I stopped helping before the stamp. I just checked the forms quietly and handed back anything incomplete.
By lunch, the waiting area was full of people asking why their forms kept getting rejected.
The same supervisor came out and said, "Can you please just tell them what's missing?" That was literally the old system, but with more chairs involved.
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MalkavianReddit Sometimes managers have never done the job you are doing and don't understand that you are helping if the person filling out the form missed something. I little time on your part seems to make the ship run smoother. If you are not missing deadlines, why would the manager care.
jreddit0000 "I cannot tell people this as a supervisor said it was against policy. I need you to fill out this form to submit a change of policy"
entrepenurious the post office failed to deliver the re- registration form for my car.
i called the agency and was told that they could not issue a duplicate form. at no time was i told that i could register my car without the form.
that would have made too much sense. i swear bureaucracies exist to employ and protect the stupid.
ThatOneSteven Ah, malicious compliance that could be mooted so simply if the customers were literate (or the forms were clear, I suppose it could be either problem)
BuboNovazealandiae Sometimes when I read this stuff I do have to wonder in the staff member pushed back at all. Surely even the most controlling middle managers are worth trying to reason with?
Dame_Niafer Because they are micromanaging jerks who are more about keeping the peasants in their place than about getting the job done. These types must be documented meticulously, because they will order you to break a process, then try to blame you for breaking it.
One_Sea_9509 I was in a heated work related discussion with my supervisor once. He became frustrated and yelled "Do you know the difference between you and me"? I yelled back, "Yes. I could do your job"
zephen_just_zephen One man deals with dozens of the same form daily, thousands or tens of thousands a year. Another man deals with that form once every three years.
The form could be reasonably clear, yet rather long and comprehensive. The second man, even if literate, could check his work five times and still miss something the first man would see in a
second. If the first man is spending an extra 5 seconds on average scanning 100 forms daily, and saving the average customer 2 minutes, that's 3 1/2 hours saved for humanity, every day.

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