Email Appreciation Day.
OK get this. Wednesday afternoon the manager of our networking department, and, later that day, the manager of the programming and development department had to go around telling everyone their news in person. Thursday was going to have to be "email appreciation day" in their departments, as they both report to the same administrator in our headquarters office, in Missouri. And by "email appreciation day," what they meant was every member of their departments had to have their email and instant messenger turned off for the day, in spite of the fact that we are a TECHNOLOGY company, and that in asking them for help we often need to document our customers' observations and keystrokes, and all the details of our research, often including screen prints.
My co-worker, Brian, pointed out that those are the same departments that routinely ignore emails received from members of our client support department, anyway. So , perhaps it wouldn't be that big of a change, for us.
So the day, today, started out with an electronic medical records specialist from our headquarters office instant messaging me to ask why he could not IM a programmer in an interface crisis, me having to run over looking for him, and in his absence someone else who can perform this function, because a broadcast email would not have been received by any of them, and just went downhill from there, in a way that if you ask me was just entirely predictable.
It middled with me having to sit in on the daily client support departments' team lead meeting. I have to attend at 11:00 am every day for the next month , while my own boss is out on medical leave. I'm really seeing how much pressure she's under to try to manipulate everyone in to putting in unnecessary (in my opinion) overtime. The manager of all the team leads of all the different client support departments puts out a chart every week to show each member of each team, and colors their week on the chart red if they put in less than 44 hours that week, yellow if they put in between 45 to 48 hours that week, or green if 48 or more. Then she asks each team lead on the call, what specifically are you going to do to encourage your team to close more calls then they open this week? What will you do to encourage them to put in more hours?
My work day ended with an administrator suddenly instant messaging me to conference in to a phone call with a client who spent about 45 minutes re-asking the same question about why the exact amount of receipts paid by customers does not equal the exact amount of services rendered towards patients with no insurance. It's because patients with health insurance still owe co-pays and deductibles. But she needed it explained over and over and kept accusing us of making her appear fraudulent to the auditors who will visit her soon.
My private phone line rang in the middle of this call, and for for fear it might be my children in trouble, they had today off from school, I put them all on hold and got the phone. It was a different customer who got my direct phone number from someone, telling me they need immediate assistance because they have over one million dollars worth of charges, never filed to Medicaid. I got rid of my first customer and the administrator who roped me in to this, well after I was scheduled to leave, and be with my own two children, home alone all day as it was. But I still had to call the other customer and get it vague details. If he needs a "4" in a box, and needs special text to appear on the claim, you'd think he'd know what box numbers AND the verbiage of the special text, but in spite of the fact that he needed this to be treated as an emergency on my part, he apparently hadn't quite worked that part out yet.
And I can't email a programmer to alert any of them to this upcoming urgent request, due to the programming department email blackout.
By the time I got off that one, I was so late in leaving, and it was so late in the afternoon, I put what I did know in an email anyway, sent it off to whoever, as well as some other people at that client's office who might actually know things like box numbers and desired verbiage to print on one million dollars worth of past-timely-filing-limit claims.
I took my laptop home. My kids said , "Where were you?" I set my laptop up in my kitchen, connected to work, and got those last important details, emailed them off to those will officially be able to read them tomorrow morning. All while baking a cheese pizza for my neglected children.
My husband comes in the door and reminds me what I already knew. I agreed to accompany him to his Lions Club dinner to meet the Lions Club district governor. By that time I was hyperventillating and ready to punch someone, anyone. I dressed in an actual dress, while listening to my husband remind me exactly what time it was about every 2 minutes. Put on the only pair of nylons I have, which ripped themselves up the back of one of my legs as I put them on. And non-winter-compatible pumps. We argued over who would drive and tried to one up each other as to how low we each were on gas, at the moment. I won. He drove.
Once we got there, it was ok. The food was good. I could sit and relax and listen to extremely old men discuss Lions Club specific lapel pin collecting and Mounds View Days carnival plans this summer. But I really wanted to come home to my kids.
Finally, at about 9 pm I got to come spend an hour with my actual kids. My 9 year old son had used my work laptop, left over from my afternoon fiasco, to make a slide show of video game pictures captured from various video game websites, and Norwegian rap music he found in my laptop music library, and he uploaded it to YouTube! Somehow he just figured that out himself!
He's a smart little guy. And he needs to get out more.
Tomorrow will be day 3 of me trying to do both mine and my boss's job. I don't know if I'll survive the month.
OK get this. Wednesday afternoon the manager of our networking department, and, later that day, the manager of the programming and development department had to go around telling everyone their news in person. Thursday was going to have to be "email appreciation day" in their departments, as they both report to the same administrator in our headquarters office, in Missouri. And by "email appreciation day," what they meant was every member of their departments had to have their email and instant messenger turned off for the day, in spite of the fact that we are a TECHNOLOGY company, and that in asking them for help we often need to document our customers' observations and keystrokes, and all the details of our research, often including screen prints.
My co-worker, Brian, pointed out that those are the same departments that routinely ignore emails received from members of our client support department, anyway. So , perhaps it wouldn't be that big of a change, for us.
So the day, today, started out with an electronic medical records specialist from our headquarters office instant messaging me to ask why he could not IM a programmer in an interface crisis, me having to run over looking for him, and in his absence someone else who can perform this function, because a broadcast email would not have been received by any of them, and just went downhill from there, in a way that if you ask me was just entirely predictable.
It middled with me having to sit in on the daily client support departments' team lead meeting. I have to attend at 11:00 am every day for the next month , while my own boss is out on medical leave. I'm really seeing how much pressure she's under to try to manipulate everyone in to putting in unnecessary (in my opinion) overtime. The manager of all the team leads of all the different client support departments puts out a chart every week to show each member of each team, and colors their week on the chart red if they put in less than 44 hours that week, yellow if they put in between 45 to 48 hours that week, or green if 48 or more. Then she asks each team lead on the call, what specifically are you going to do to encourage your team to close more calls then they open this week? What will you do to encourage them to put in more hours?
My work day ended with an administrator suddenly instant messaging me to conference in to a phone call with a client who spent about 45 minutes re-asking the same question about why the exact amount of receipts paid by customers does not equal the exact amount of services rendered towards patients with no insurance. It's because patients with health insurance still owe co-pays and deductibles. But she needed it explained over and over and kept accusing us of making her appear fraudulent to the auditors who will visit her soon.
My private phone line rang in the middle of this call, and for for fear it might be my children in trouble, they had today off from school, I put them all on hold and got the phone. It was a different customer who got my direct phone number from someone, telling me they need immediate assistance because they have over one million dollars worth of charges, never filed to Medicaid. I got rid of my first customer and the administrator who roped me in to this, well after I was scheduled to leave, and be with my own two children, home alone all day as it was. But I still had to call the other customer and get it vague details. If he needs a "4" in a box, and needs special text to appear on the claim, you'd think he'd know what box numbers AND the verbiage of the special text, but in spite of the fact that he needed this to be treated as an emergency on my part, he apparently hadn't quite worked that part out yet.
And I can't email a programmer to alert any of them to this upcoming urgent request, due to the programming department email blackout.
By the time I got off that one, I was so late in leaving, and it was so late in the afternoon, I put what I did know in an email anyway, sent it off to whoever, as well as some other people at that client's office who might actually know things like box numbers and desired verbiage to print on one million dollars worth of past-timely-filing-limit claims.
I took my laptop home. My kids said , "Where were you?" I set my laptop up in my kitchen, connected to work, and got those last important details, emailed them off to those will officially be able to read them tomorrow morning. All while baking a cheese pizza for my neglected children.
My husband comes in the door and reminds me what I already knew. I agreed to accompany him to his Lions Club dinner to meet the Lions Club district governor. By that time I was hyperventillating and ready to punch someone, anyone. I dressed in an actual dress, while listening to my husband remind me exactly what time it was about every 2 minutes. Put on the only pair of nylons I have, which ripped themselves up the back of one of my legs as I put them on. And non-winter-compatible pumps. We argued over who would drive and tried to one up each other as to how low we each were on gas, at the moment. I won. He drove.
Once we got there, it was ok. The food was good. I could sit and relax and listen to extremely old men discuss Lions Club specific lapel pin collecting and Mounds View Days carnival plans this summer. But I really wanted to come home to my kids.
Finally, at about 9 pm I got to come spend an hour with my actual kids. My 9 year old son had used my work laptop, left over from my afternoon fiasco, to make a slide show of video game pictures captured from various video game websites, and Norwegian rap music he found in my laptop music library, and he uploaded it to YouTube! Somehow he just figured that out himself!
He's a smart little guy. And he needs to get out more.
Tomorrow will be day 3 of me trying to do both mine and my boss's job. I don't know if I'll survive the month.
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