Post what you are thinking at this very moment

[Teh One Who Knocks]

On a happier note, I came in this morning to find a $500 cash bonus waiting for me on my desk.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Can I borrow $500

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Can I borrow $500

Inflation has already turned it into only $5

[Hugh_Janus]

got a haircut and the barber started with his clippers, his exact words were "wow, that's thick" then he switched to some beefier ones I told him just be glad you didn't have to cut my hair when I was in my twenties, then you'd know what thick hair was, that shit was fuckin ridiculous

[Pony]

Well so far at work I'm up to 8 dead tv's, 4 more damaged. 14 dead cable boxes, 3 more unknown and one dead modem. Still only 3/4 through the houses we manage and I haven't even started on the 20+ houses that we don't manage but I'm still responsible for the Spectrum equipment under the HOA agreement.

Gonna be a long couple weeks.

[Godfather]

I've got to write out my frustration at work right now because I need to vent.

One of our underwriting departments at work, the underwriters who handle personal insurance, went from a dedicated model (every brokerage had a dedicated underwriter) to a call center model. That's fine, it's the only way you can truly scale up a business without just hiring more and more people. It makes sense, the stats prove it, we were one of the last companies to do it. No big deal. Some clients bitch and whine because they had good relationships with their underwriter, but most see that call wait times are down, and with our new system launched at the same time, you hardly need to call anymore, you have the power.

Anyways.. it has some hiccups. With the call centre model, we in business development (professional apologizers for the company at times) get a lot more complaints. Our clients aren't always getting the consistency and give-and-take they had with the dedicated contact. Sometimes it's just noise, but sometimes I get complaints where I fully agree we're being too harsh. I worked in underwriting at this company for years so I know when we've made a bad call.

The process for me to get a bad decision re-looked at has now changed about 3 times in 6-months:

- At first, I'd just walk down the hall and chat with the underwriter or supervisor... problem usually solved.
- But oh oh... that's not right. We're apparently escalating too much. Have the clients call the centre back and escalate it that way.
- Oh... complaints still coming back that they don't want to hear.... Next step: We'll use an escalation log with a 4-hour SLA. Fine - ok, I'll fill out the fucking form.
- Next issue a few weeks later: Too many escalations in the log now. Solution: Only escalate issues from the client's management team and above. Alright?... I guess... but that means that any issue has to go to the desk of our client's management first, who then see we're being idiots too, rather than solving it at the front line and giving a problem more visibility.


And then out of the blue I get an email today: They still don't like our escalations. Solution? Now *I* have to escalate to my Director, to escalate to the Underwriting manager on my behalf.

So we've gone from me fixing issues talking directly, to an excel spreadsheet where I explained the story, and finally now to needing to go through 3-4 different people to fix a problem. I.. who have spent far more time working on the front line than my director... need my director's permission to raise a flag that we fucked up.


I try and roll with the punches and be a good student of change management, adapting to the growing pains of a company that wants to grow fast and not always be the little punching bag of the industry... but this is too fucking much. On one hand they're wondering why we're not growing as planned, or why our company has so many "silos"... on the other, the BD team who's supposed to be the most in touch with our clients, can no longer escalate the issues we hear about directly to have them fixed.

It's nuts... I flat out wanted to quit when this email came in today saying we can no longer escalate problems relating to that one department ourselves. Pure and utter insanity, insulting, stupid. Fuck it all. If my portfolio wasn't getting so hammered I might just quit and take some time to reevaluate my career

[DemonGeminiX]

@Godfather

Have you ever considered taking up boxing/MMA/Martial Arts and starting a fight club?

[Pony]

@Godfather

Totally different career but similar BS is exactly why I got out of the auto industry. Everywhere I worked sooner or later started going down the same path.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

I'm thinking that I'm going to dedicate one credit card to use at POS at stores and stuff to try and cut down on the potential fraud of losing my debit card info. Seems to be a lot easier to dispute fraud charges with a credit card versus a debit card. The credit union has put holds on the pending funds in both mine and the wife's accounts until the charges clear. Then we have to call them back, dispute the charges again, then they give a 'provisional credit' back to you and forward the fraud report to their fraud department. The rep told me that the credits can be reversed if the fraud department doesn't agree that fraud occurred.

At least with a credit card, there aren't any funds that are held by the bank, just pending charges. And the few times I've had to dispute things with a credit card company, it was actually pretty easy. And then with using a credit card, I can just pay off the charges once a week so a balance doesn't accumulate, since the money would have been coming right out of my bank account anyway if I had been using my debit card.

We started doing that probably 10 years ago
Go to nerd wallet and you can find the card with the best rewards that fit what you want, and as long as you pay it every month there is no interest so its a win/win

[Hugh_Janus]

If I had to live in america, I think I'd want to live in texas

[PorkChopSandwiches]

I'm thinking of just saying fuck it and moving to Mexico. Much more affordable and has California weather. We have already discussed retiring there.

[DemonGeminiX]

I'm thinking of just saying fuck it and moving to Mexico. Much more affordable and has California weather. We have already discussed retiring there.

And you'll be closer to drug cartels, so you could get as high as you want. Just don't piss them off. Or tell them your family's rich.

[deebakes]

I'm thinking of just saying fuck it and moving to Mexico. Much more affordable and has California weather. We have already discussed retiring there.

i just came back from santa barbara where they wanted to charge me $9 for a 12 oz can of coke

[Pony]

i just came back from santa barbara where they wanted to charge me $9 for a 12 oz can of coke

In Mexico you can buy a 12 ounce can of COKE for $9

[deebakes]