Lies, damn lies and helpdesk statistics

Bad managers seem to be able to manage only by the numbers. They only seem to be happy when there is a stream of digits in front of them that measure performance. They like to make their decisions the easy way. The problem when you are working in a fault-response environment is that the numbers that they rely on, are usually wrong; badly wrong.

Helpdesk work is by the numbers; the number of calls you answer in a day, the number of seconds it takes you to answer incomming calls, the number of minutes it takes you to solve a problem and the number of minutes it takes you to write the job up before you are available again for the next caller. The numbers are typically flashed on a display to the entire room for everyone to see; the SLAs (service level agreements) for you and your entire team, updated every few seconds; in some places the updates are live.

The numbers are the pressure that bears down on you. Forget customer service, forget the extra touch that leaves a smile on peoples faces, just think of the fact that your job is on the line with every call you take; you keep up with the stats, or your out of the door.

In a call measured environment, you're working against the jugglers. Calls have status, white, green, yellow and red. You go away to a desk visit and return to find that people have passed you calls that have already gone red; never mind if you can solve it or not, your stats take a hit. Other techies help themselves to the simple calls, ramping up large closure stats while you are left struggling with the harder calls. Project work takes you away from the call closures; again your stats fall. You can't put any quality in to your solutions; you can't do the long term good stuff because you're battling a damn clock and those fu&$%ng numbers.

... unless you give a fuck and screw the numbers, and then the users think you're the best thing to come out of the IT department ... for a short time ... because when your stats go down, you get fired. The managers get someone else in; someone who knows how to play the numbers game. There are also many other ways that the figures get shifted, converted, manipulated and twisted.

The senior managers can only work from the figures; they've got even less chance of having a finger on the pulse than the middle managers, so they've got no other choice than to back up the numbers game. Lets face it, when it comes to the wishes and whims of upper management, anyone who has seen Alan Sugar in action will surely despair.

At the moment I'm in luck; my manager knows the score and the team is a good one. At the moment, the numbers churned out by the system are filed under, "fiction," by the present team. However, the management is changing ... rapidly. When management changes, who knows what is around the corner. It is a corner that is aproaching me ... fast ... and I can't pick out a clue in the headlights.