I'd recommend to fight back, as you verified, some bullies won't stop 
until you make them, so fight with all you got if you must and then 
change environment if necessary. Our fears make problems and enemies 
greater than they really are and it what keeps us from progress/change.

I suffered some kind of harassment and I didn't tried to kick my boss' 
ass because of my professional reputation and the respect I have for the 
place I work, but sometimes you need to put people in their place by 
force, or you'll never receive respect from them, so first respect 
yourself more and demand respect as you give to others, everyone needs 
and wants this but some stupid people think they can avoid this rule, 
maybe they can, BUT DON'T LET THEM WITHOUT A GOOD FIGHT!!! Assuming you 
have depleted all other resources. I'm not a friend of taking the law in 
your hands, but if it comes to a point where the law won't help you, 
well you have to help yourself to survive.

Good people suffer the stupidity of some people with small souls.

Your own fears are always the greatest of enemies, so you MUST face them 
first. Don't drink more than you need from the Sea of Violence.

Best Regards.

Post a reply to this message

>> You don't have to tell me exactly which part of BT she works for, but it 
>> seems *really* unlikely that no other company needs those skills.
>
> Last time I checked, BT ownes the entire telephone network. Nobody else is 
> allowed to touch it.

And no other company manages similar (albeit smaller) such networks?  Sorry, 
but I'm just struggling to think what she does that wouldn't be needed in 
any other company in the country.

Post a reply to this message

> Maybe it's just me, but if someone at work actually raised their voice to 
> me out of something other than momentary anger, I'd just laugh in their 
> face and tell them to grow up.

I think I'd just ignore them and make a comment like "are you done now, i 
have to work".

> Not to minimize your mom's feelings, but I just can't relate.

I know a few people (mostly female actually) who I think would react the 
same way as Andrew's mum.  It's not nice when someone you love is feeling 
that way.

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>> She spent about 10 years installing people's telephones, running 
>> telephone cables, diagnosing network faults, etc.
> 
> OK. That would be the monopoly part, yes. :-)
> 
> Maybe look at a construction company who wants someone experienced when 
> wiring up new buildings?

...except that she doesn't do that any more. She ended up in the call 
center because she was getting too old for lugging ladders and stuff 
around in all weather.

>> Now she just works in a call center where people ring her up to whine 
>> about their phone not working and demand that somebody come and fix it 
>> yesterday.
> 
> Huh. It's hard to believe there are performance targets that can't get 
> scammed there, given the number of places you read about (for example) 
> AOL customer service reps just hanging up on customers to keep their 
> call volume high. :-)

Well, this is it. The call handling target *was* 500 seconds per call.

It should be self-evident that this is completely impossible.

- If somebody calls you and spends 25 minutes screaming at you about how 
**** your company is before they will even tell you what they're calling 
about, you cannot complete the call in 500 seconds. [Yes, this is 
apparently a *daily* occurrance. Some people apparently think they're 
important or something.]

- If some little old lady calls you, and you have to repeat yourself six 
times before she even hears what you said properly (never mind 
understands what you're asking), you cannot complete the call in 500 
seconds.

- If you have to transfer the call to another department, and they take 
20 minutes to pick up the phone, you cannot end in the call in 500 seconds.

Would you like me to continue?

Of course, earlier this year the target was suddenly reduced to 450 
seconds. And then 420 seconds. And then 390 seconds. And now it stands 
at 360 seconds. It's "always" been 500 seconds, but now suddenly the 
keep reducing it every few months. Oh, you're still expected to do the 
same *work*, just faster.

(I could give you a long list of things you're supposed to do. You're 
supposed to start with a standard greeting. You're supposed to collect 
certain data to verify you're speaking to the authorised account holder. 
If you send an engineer, you're supposed to warn the customer that they 
may be charged. At the end of the call you're supposed to repeat the 
agreed actions. And so on and so forth. In 360 seconds...)

You're also not supposed to hang up. And you're not supposed to 
interrupt the customer, under any circumstances. (Great when they spent 
25 minutes telling you that they consider members of the phylum 
Platyhelminthes to be of greatly superior evolutionary development to 
yourself...)

Apparently the only people more unreasonably than the company is the 
customers. Like the people running a business from their house. Phone 
stops working, they want 4-hour turnaround fixing it, or else £1,000 per 
hour for every hour they're out of service, because that's how much 
money they claim to be losing by not having a phone. But, obviously, 
these people are paying residential phone rates....... Um, yeah, nice try.

Post a reply to this message

>> Last time I checked, BT ownes the entire telephone network. Nobody 
>> else is allowed to touch it.
> 
> And no other company manages similar (albeit smaller) such networks?  

No. That's why it's called a "government-granted monopoly".

> Sorry, but I'm just struggling to think what she does that wouldn't be 
> needed in any other company in the country.

The only company that needs to know about network diagnostics is... the 
company that runs the network. I would imagine.

(It also wouldn't surprise me if her contract forbids her working for a 
competetor for X years - but I haven't actually checked...)

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> I've always been financially conservative, so I've 
> never been so broke I'd be out on the street by getting fired.

I imagine this part is where the difference lies, yes. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

>>> Last time I checked, BT ownes the entire telephone network. Nobody else 
>>> is allowed to touch it.
>>
>> And no other company manages similar (albeit smaller) such networks?
>
> No. That's why it's called a "government-granted monopoly".

Only for the public telephone network, large corporations have similar 
(albeit smaller) internal systems that are not run by BT.  Then there are 
cable TV networks etc, I don't know if what she does is also applicable to 
these.

> (It also wouldn't surprise me if her contract forbids her working for a 
> competetor for X years - but I haven't actually checked...)

I have that for 6 months too, but it isn't legal so you can just ignore it 
:-)

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>> (It also wouldn't surprise me if her contract forbids her working for 
>> a competetor for X years - but I haven't actually checked...)
> 
> I have that for 6 months too, but it isn't legal so you can just ignore 
> it :-)

Wait - you mean if somebody is in a contract, it's not necessarily 
enforcible?

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:

> This is exactly what has been happening in France with France Telecom 
> (aka Orange). It took around 25 suicides (a guy even stabbed himself in 
> the stomach during a meeting) for things to become public. It's been a 
> matter a national debate in the past months and some corporate heads 
> were cut. It's difficult to say if things are really going to change but 
> at least the victims are no longer alone wondering what they did wrong.
> In any case, it's really a matter of employees banding together, going 
> public with this and making as much noise as possible. The harassement 
> methods you describe are 100% identical to those used by FT (down to the 
> people targeted by the bullying, i.e. senior engineers), so there's a 
> precedent for it.

In the current financial times, it wouldn't surprise me if quite a few 
companies have taken it into their heads to start doing this kind of thing.

Usually, if you treat your employees badly, they'll just quit, and then 
you have a Big Problem. In the current conditions, people are rather 
unlikely to quit, because there's nowhere to go. Plus the companies 
themselves are presumably feeling the pinch and looking to cut corners 
to save money. What could be cheaper than keeping your current workforce 
and just forcing them to work harder?

What to do about this is another matter... If the comments of the 
psychologist are anything to go by, you'd think there would be a fairly 
strong case to answer.

Post a reply to this message

>> I have that for 6 months too, but it isn't legal so you can just ignore 
>> it :-)
>
> Wait - you mean if somebody is in a contract, it's not necessarily 
> enforcible?

Most clauses in a contract are not laws in terms of things that are illegal 
to do, they are just things that will get your contract terminated (ie 
sacked) if you don't abide by them.  After you have left a company obviously 
the contract is terminated anyway, so the only thing they can do is take you 
to court if they have proof you have done something illegal. Obviously 
working for a competitor is not illegal, but something like telling them all 
the secrets from the previous company might be.

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