Kate’s Rants

office politics really crack me up.

in my office, there’s several ongoing battles. the biggest battle is between the Organisers and Admin.

the office is pretty big. it’s divided into sectors. each sector has a few organisers. and each organiser is in charge of maybe 80 workers. that’s a lot of workers. it’s the organiser’s job to match their workers to the people who need help. they base it on location mostly. like if an old person needs help, and there is a worker who lives close to that organiser, most likely THAT worker will be assigned to THAT client. that’s the way it works.

at this point, there are so many clients in need of help and not enough workers. i mean, you REALLY have to want to do this job. and i doubt many people would really want to be a social worker. you have to really really like helping people. and be willing to not get paid a lot. because this job doesn’t pay a lot. (that’s what people keep telling me.) so there’s not enough workers to meet the demand of clients. how is that supposed to work??

well it doesnt really. more and more clients keep coming in and the organisers are juggling their workers around constantly to try to cover all these people. it’s a mess!!

also, the setup of this office is pretty bad. since most of the organisers are sortof older, they are mostly not interested in the computers because they don’t really understand them, and don’t really WANT to understand them. they like what they know, and want to stay that way. unfortunately, their way is slow and less efficient. so….. they really need to learn how to use the computers a bit better, and it would make things so much easier for EVERYONE.

 that’s the main problem: the unwillingness to learn. if they know their job is on the line, they might be more open. but i have to talk to the head manager about that. i classify myself with the Admin side of the battle. even though i’m not really admin. i’m sortof in a class by myself.

I’ve never really tried to explain my job. most people reading this probably don’t really care. it’s actually a very simple job, but sortof hard to explain. but i’ll try.

I work in a building called Chesser House. it’s a large office building. I work for the city council. we are called “home care direct” and it’s basically a call center. the council used to have each sector in a different building, but they decided to lump all the organisers together in one room. i think this transition happened in may 2006. not too long ago. so everyone is still sortof adjusting. Bill, the guy who trained me to take over his job, was hired because the managers realized the way they had hoped things would turn out wasn’t really working, so they needed someone to help out for a bit. it was supposed to be a temporary thing, but i suppose transition takes a bit of time.

there is a group of people called the Service Matching Unit. (SMU) they are the people i deal with every day. in fact, my position is the SMU coordinator. snazzy huh? well, basically what happens is the SMU gets a bunch of calls/emails/letters or some form of communication from various sources asking for help for their clients. there are doctors phoning them saying “hey, this guy has dementia. he needs to be looked after.” or “hey, this lady needs her house cleaned and she can’t use the kitchen anymore cause she is going blind so she needs someone to make her meals.” stuff like that. so then SMU sends these emails (in the form of spreadsheets that make all the needs really nice and neat) off to ME. the basic idea was for the organisers to get the emails and just do everything on the computer. but soon after they set up this contact center, the managers realised that the organisers DONT check their email and so they needed someone to do it for them. pretty much. so that’s where i come in. i check the organiser’s email. yeah. lame? yes. but it’s just the way things are. so after i get the emails for ALL the organisers (none of them check it… it’s through outlook express so they set up my computer to have everyone’s folder and so i just recieve emails for each sector) i then print out the spreadsheets and hand them directly to the organisers. so they have a hard copy of these spreadsheets, and they are supposed to fill them out (by the due date that i write at the top) and hand them back to me. this happens sometimes. for awhile when i first got here, they were just forgetting to do it, or not bothering, or losing the sheets. BAD. so we worked out a sortof system.  we have a database (well, i have access to it, and i think everyone should, but again it involves a computer and everyone is scared of them) so we are able to see which clients still need help. you see, if we don’t match the client by the due date, SMU will go ahead and contact a private agency to get help to this person. this costs a lot of money, and is making the budget “spiral out of control” according to the head boss.

 anyway, my battle with the organisers is to get those spreadsheets filled out and back to me before the due date. it’s def. a constant battle. they are constantly losing them and i have to go bother them to fill them out and pretty much DO their job! what is that about?? they are so irresponsible that the managers hired a temp to bug them to do their job. sheesh! and apparently the organisers are really bad about filling out their paperwork. that again is part of their job, but since they are on the phones all day they just don’t do their paperwork properly. and the Admin staff are constantly trying to decode the chicken scratch that the organisers scrawl on the bits of paper they hand over to Admin. it’s a mess. and linsay (the new admin girl) keeps saying “this is MAD!” we had a meeting with Andy, the manager of the Administration people, and Linsay brought up all the problems with the system, and he just said “well, that’s just the way it is.” and all of us kindof rolled our eyes and wondered why we dont try to CHANGE it, because it’s not really working.

 i actually wrote up a proposal on how to slowly eliminate my job and introduce the organisers to outlook express, and try to get them to use the computers more and paper less and yeah. who knows if it will work, but it NEEDS to. the just need someone to sit down and explain it to them. so……. i might do that. who knows. it shouldnt be that hard. right?

 anyway, yesterday at lunch me, linsay, luca and pipyn (the young admin crowd) were eating lunch together. luca was mad because he was helping out with the southwest sector admin stuff (because the southwest lady was out sick) and one of the southwest organisers came up to him to complain about the work he did. she actually said “why aren’t you doing your job??”  we all heard it, because our desks are all clustered together. so at lunch luca was saying how angry he was. pipyn offered to go over to the organiser and smack her across the face with her keyboard. yes, violent. we then proceeded to make lots of plans on how to hurt the organiser. yes yes, we are mean. yes yes, how sick is that? but whatever, we were only kidding.

 anyways, i’m soon moving over to the old lady area. the cluster of desks where the meanest organisers reside. the dragon’s lair. it’s on the opposite side of the room from all my buddies. how sad is that? PLUS the printer is located on this (admin) side, and i dont think there’s a printer on the other side of the room. so every time i print out a page (which is like every 10 minutes) i’ll have to walk across the room to retrive it. doesn’t make any sense at all. just one more reason to get those organisers using the computers more.

 anyway, since i’m at work i should really do something. i came in early today and havent really done much. haha. whatever. i’m over it.