Illusions – Day 20

Illusions – Day 20

Originally uploaded by etimpa

A companion photo to one I blogged earlier.

Sometimes it’s not about control. It’s about fun.
About seeing the bright spark inside of you and one inside of something else. To let things go and just go with what your heart says.

I think it’s about time to shatter the illusions.
I’m not in control here.

So I shall be. Life is my own.

It’s all a bit final sounding isn’t it. Which I didn’t expect. I did see something within the shot. And I did plan this post to go along with it. I just never expected it to come out sounding so abrupt and impending.

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged and a long time since control. The minor things are there, I look after my time and watch movies, code, play with liv, time with my baby, and the baby, and my little girl…….. how confusing.. Oh well.

But the big things aren’t there. I go to work when I’m told to, I do the things they want me to do.

The final hiccup came 2 weeks ago.
I’d spent the previous few weeks (not including xmas break) working on a new stats system. Ok, hold it. Back one step.

I work as an Operational Analyst. My job consists of two major tasks, report on what the business did and tell the business how to improve it.

Some reporting is simple and daily. How many calls did X team take.
Some is more complex and in depth “How soon after someone contacts us about X are they likely to speak with this team here”. “What is the major driver of dissatisfaction for this type of customer”.

So, I set out to build a new system. A new stats system. A web based stats system. Now web based doesn’t mean on the internet, it just means using a web server.

And I built a functional start. 3 teams started using the system to get their stats. Now this is a step up.
Old stats = excel based tables.
One table, per day, per team.

The managers (without IT knowledge) can’t really filter, sort or rearrange the data.

The new system is dynamicly generated tables.
You can sort by any column by clicking it. Ascending or Descending.
You can filter a table by typing into a box. Want to see only the people with 8 answered calls? We can do it.
Want to see only the people with a HA in their name? we can do that to.

Then I added more. I built a widget system. miniature applications. Single items of information you could add and modify at will.

A widget shows you the top 5 people in your team.
Another one shows you the call stats for a single person for this month. Add another copy and keep an eye on someone else.
Another widget shows you the last business day for YOUR team.
Drag and drop. Re-order them how you like it.

One manager watches the team stats and the monthly totals. Another looks after discipline and has widgets to monitor 4 problem employees.

Everything seemed great. Managers requested new features and I added them. Stats were faster (data is entered once for ALL teams in a single copy/paste instead of once per team), everyone was happier.

Then a team meeting is called with my team. We should review the system. It seems that two people in my team haven’t seen the new system. And not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, they’ve decided it wont work. it can’t be used and won’t meet their needs.

A hilarious start to a meeting about something they haven’t seen.
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. The team who’s jobs would no longer be to do these stats did not like it.
Forget the managers (the users of the tool, who loved it), forget the agents on the floor (who had no visible stats before this system) and the only opinions sought were of the team who would not ever use it.

Then things came to support. Who would support such a tool, the rest of the team were not programmers, So if I were to leave, there would be no-one to support it.
Then hire a programmer to replace me I said. The tool saves more than 1 persons share of work. Should I happen to go, hire a programmer to maintain and update the tool, this would still leave all of the current work gettign done, plus all the tool benefits.
And it wouldn’t even cost an entire person. The tool won’t need full time care, and we have a team downstairs who could always use another programmer. But alas.
This would not come to pass.

Bold and modern thinking is not going to slide here. We will remain with this ill formed spreadsheet based solution for the foreseeable future.

The hilarity comes in April when another reporting tool we use is replaced by the core business.
The new one works nothing like the old one. And the IT project managers in Sydney don’t care that 4 people in Brisbane might not know how to use it, the software is changing anyway.
It’s going to be much more like programming when we switch over. The team got asked about that too, they “should be fine with it”.

So back to control. This I do not have.
So I’ll work to regain it. either within, or without.