i showed up at work today to find an email from my supervisor to the whole internet response team (with the associate director, manager, and our human resources staffer copied on the message) saying that – while it’s always been a rule, and though it may not have been really enforced in the past – going forward any use of phones / bluetooth earpieces / laptop computers / etc. at our desks during work can be considered insubordination and a breach of the business code of conduct because it impacts our productivity, and as a result it does not need to be escalated from a coaching situation to a verbal warning and then to a written warning before we are fired.

now, i really never talked on my phone at my desk, and i never used my laptop at my desk, but i’d do some text messaging and i’d do a quick check of my email on my blackberry while i’m waiting for something to open or process through our system. i know there’s folks on my team a lot worse than me (a lot worse), but this makes me feel like they’re watching over my back at all times. i’m almost scared… hm, “scared” is too strong of a word… how about “reluctant”, yeah… reluctant to even look at my phone during the day because of this.

it even said something how we shouldn’t even use our phones at our desks during our breaks and that we should use our phones in the break room. i can understand doing that for phone calls, but fuck that noise if i’m going to be expected to go stand in the break room to read through some emails on my phone during my break.

my cube is across an aisle from my supervisor’s cube, and i heard him have a few other coworkers in there to be coached and sign forms about the business code of conduct.

i used to take my 15-minute breaks at work at the same times every day — 12:00 noon, and 4:30 pm… this way, after my breaks were up (at 12:15 and 4:45 pm), i’d only have a home stretch of 45 minutes left to go through for the day. i say “used to” because tomorrow my team now has our 15-minute breaks scheduled for us; mine’s now at 11:00 am and 3:30 pm. yaaay.

one thing that really annoys me about this is that it’s all done in the name of efficiency and improving productivity. don’t get me wrong, i can see how keeping people from wasting spare moments can improve the number of orders we each do per hour, but COME ON, use some discretion. take me, for example. i’m not the most productive person on our team, i’ll be the first to admit that, but i pull my weight in other areas — i’m always available to process reworks (i’m practically the only person in the entire department, let alone my team, that understands how to process one accurately and doesn’t mind taking the time to get one done) and take ownership of special projects, i have additional assignments and reports i have to generate each morning, and my quality is impeccable (first two audits of 2008 = 100% each! average for all audits for december 2007 = 95+%). the thing is, quality scores like that come at a cost; you’re not going to get compliant work by having people rush through their orders.

seriously, i’m getting to the point where i want to find another job. if they’re going to be trying to hold us to some ridiculous emails per hour ratio quota (originally it was emails per hour, then they were thinking of changing it to “orders per hour” since 1 email could have multiple requests to be processed, but the billing system itself may generate multiple orders for each request — take a request to change two things on an account: one of those changes might need 2 or more changes to take effect, and then adding the remarks to the account counts as an additional change. so for just those two requested changes, you’ve got yourself 4 or even 5 “orders”, and that skews the report results), and expect us to keep quality scores up, i think it might be time to search for another job. i’m not going to sacrifice customer-impacting quality issues in order to do more work each day.

besides, i can’t see myself advancing anywhere in the company, except with the IT department, and positions there are few and far between. *sigh* the trouble is i don’t know who or where or what i’d like to do. :/ that, and any job changes i want to make will probably have to wait until september. stupid degree. stupid tuition payments.