A fellow technician once said this to me... "Management will not be happy until we spend 100% of our time accounting for our time". This top down control freak management style is the biggest impediment for conscientious technicians to do quality work. And at the same time it provides a safe haven for the slackers and poor performers who learn how to manipulate the numbers and look downright pretty on the almighty spreadsheet.
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Remember 5 Star? I was able to "use" MSOC to acquire enough points to buy a shotgun through that system. Shortly after, and getting on the second lines bad side, they searched my work truck for a gun because of a fake call to Asset Protection. Good Times. And no, they did not find a gun in my work truck. I have a CCW.....it's not going to be in my truck. What id--tS!
MSOC was easy to manipulate. It’s like the people who developed and implemented it thought they were smarter than all the rest of us. Just tell me the number you want and I’ll get it for you, was my response to MSOC.
I guess some of you did not read the post from months ago regarding MSOC.
First rule, Do not talk about MSOC.
Second rule, you do not talk about MSOC.
Allow the company to choke on it's own success..
MSOC is a SE deal. Believe it was implemented when Smith, who was a SE guy, became President of Network Services. Do know you would get steamrolled if you had issues with the process.
Just don't lay off our 2nd Line - Joey makes some incredible pancakes when we hit our Safety Numbers. Mmmmm - pancakes.
Isn’t necessarily that a tech is lazy or not. It’s a system that produces inaccurate results and promotes mediocrity (on many poeple, but not all). So, if you’re clever enough and learn the system you eventually will learn to take advantage of it. Much more if your managers are happy and even celebrate it. It’s human nature... Think about it. The political system, the social benefits entitlements, etc etc. People learn...
On the other hand, the tech that is conscious, enjoy doing excellent work and want to be know for that, are a professional, will do it no matter if the system is wrong or whatever.
I wonder if Silicon Valley companies use a MSOC like time management tool.
I work with a tech who says "MSOC is the lazy man's best friend" He watches the 2 hour periods, and if he hits "the number" the first hour, he does little or nothing for the next hour. His MSOC report is always over 100%
I'd be happy to account for my time minute-by-minute if I could view management's time on a website showing their minute-by-minute work. All the way up to Randal.
We stopped tracking everything over a year ago. We use to track hours on projects and tasks. Now it makes no difference . Lay-off criteria is decided not by performance or value to the organization. It’s about simple criteria voide of any decision it is a check box on a sheet. If you have that box checked you are gone. They are making record profits but they need to prop up the falling share price, but it hasn’t worked so far with stock buybacks and dividend hikes. The Layoffs are to pay debt payments so they can’t afford to keep manipulating the failing stock- this is just so the top Rogers get their money before the bankruptcy eventually happens.
Management reading this probably thinks we complain about metrics because we don't want to work hard. Nothing further from the truth. We take pride in our job. They just don't understand that msoc creates a bunch of cheaters
MSOC did indeed come from BellSouth.
Slackers make their numbers and widgets. You know who you are. I don't blame you. It is what it is.
"For every tech working there are 5 other people making sure they are."
Amen - I would like to know how many fricken VP's does the company need.
A lot less...
"For every tech working there are 5 other people making sure they are."
Amen - I would like to know how many fricken VP's does the company need.
I was here before divestiture in '84. Had 5 years in.
SBC initiated this.
And got worse as time, and GPS, and VPN and electronic monitoring became prevalent.
On the contrary, all of the micromanaging has come from the Bell companies. I was at Legacy T for 10 years before SBC bought them and started with all of this non-stop harassment, writing people up and micromanaging every little thing. I went to work at BellSouth after SBC surplused a bunch of the Legacy T employees and found that they were the same way. This only continued to get worse after they merged back with SBC/AT&T in 2007.
To the person who posted regarding that it got worse after the SBC-Legacy T merger...You are so right!! I am a manager(bash bash bash bash) and it is no different. It has only gotten worse. If you think back, they displaced many of the legacy S people and put legacy T people in place. These were the same people who ran Legacy T into the ground and back then I said it would happen to the NEW T. Antiquated systems from Legacy T that are used in place of Legacy S(which stunk but not near as bad), amazes me we get anything to the OSWF to install. By the way, I respect ALL my fellow employees, non-management and management that are in the trenches together. We didn't create this mess, but we will all end up paying for it
It got worse after the SBC-Legacy T merger. Most of the micromanaging came from Legacy T. All Legacy T upper level management should have all been surplused.
It's not just techs they do this with.
For every tech working there are 5 other people making sure they are.
The technicians doing their job will normally be the most experienced with few repeats or rework, or those learning and doing their job, but each may have the lower numbers. Watch those with the highest numbers because they are the ones who play the numbers.