Hi guys. First post here. Thought I would share an experience which has rocked me to my core this week just passed at work. So, I live in Queensland, and last Saturday we experienced torrential levels of rain, resulting in “major” flooding, with the water reaching its peak on monday morning. The flooding got so bad it was classified as a state-wide emergency, resulting in insane levels of property damage and numerous deaths. In terms of my own area, the surrounding streets had turned into a swamp with pungent green water, with houses all along our street, particularly more low-lying properties, getting completely flooded. The only reason our apartment was not flooded was due to our property being slightly elevated, with many steps. I really thought at one point that we would need to evacuate, and possibly move to higher ground. Thankfully this did not happen but was a legitimate fear at the time.
My role is mainly work from home call center based, but also has administrative components, with unrealistic targets being set every day. This is something I have just accepted as part of the job, but I didn’t expect what was to follow this week. Considering the biblical crisis occurring with unprecedented flood waters, I thought that productivity expectations would be lesser when I returned to work on Monday, and that my workplace would be more lenient on targets – but boy was I wrong. As Thorin said in the Hobbit, “I have never been so wrong in all my life.”
On Monday morning, due to poor connection issues from the flooding, it took me about twenty minutes to successfully log into my computer and connect to the internet. When I was finally able to do so, I communicated that our area had been flooded. Our manager, who we will call “Janet” said something along the lines of “your area always gets it bad.” She was clearly aware of my situation. About 20 minutes after this, I received a message from Janet saying that she needed me to work on a certain excel spreadsheet with two other co-workers, setting an insane target of work cases to process, and saying it needed to be done in two hours. She then added “no pressure haha.” I was already feeling drained from the ordeal of the weekend, and couldn’t believe that not only were my output expectations not more relaxed, but that I was given a special assignment from another department, to do within an impossible deadline. Needless to say, it took two hours longer than the expected deadline to accomplish the task, but I frankly didn’t give a damn. Clearly someone in upper management had fallen behind on a project and lumped it on our team to complete this spreadsheet at the last second, and Janet wanted all the glory of our team clearing up the mess. I don’t know how a human being is so emotionally out of touch, or incapable of recognizing that fear of your apartment being flooded, is hardly conducive to being on your a-game.
In the middle of the aforementioned impossible deadline task, we had everyone’s favorite workplace activity occur for fifteen minutes– a quick arbitrary zoom meeting which accomplished nothing. When we have these meetings, our manager will often go through our workplace statistics including average phone time with customers, average case work time– typical call center metrics. I expected my manager to tell those impacted by the floods to not worry about targets for the day, but this was not to be the case. A lady in our team, (we’ll call Mary) who I really felt for, also suffered from this extreme weather event, mentioning how two of her rooms had been flooded. Mary advised that she would need to talk to the property manager about this, and that she would be required to leave her work computer for a tiny duration. Janet did not express any empathy or the remotest indication of concern for Mary: instead she only asked what Mary’s online status would be during this time. “Does that mean you are going offline?” was what she asked.
At the end of our work days, our metrics including the amount of time we spend working on cases is grouped as a team whole. This team whole is compared against the performance of other teams in manager only meetings daily. The fact Janet only cared about the metrics, and how her team average would appear, in the face of Mary’s home being flooded and this crisis occurring was staggering to me. How self-centered can one possibly be? I was the only one who inquired further about Mary’s wellbeing. When Mary began to provide more details on her situation, I observed my manager’s body language and could tell she was not really listening. It was obvious she was just waiting for Mary to stop speaking, as evidenced by her quick uninterested nods. When Mary mentioned that she immediately needed to go and talk to the property manager, Janet again appeared disinterested and said quickly, “okay bye.” I was so angry at this. I messaged Mary privately on Microsoft teams after this to see if she was okay with her flood situation, providing the compassion that was sorely missed in our shit meeting.
The next day at work I felt sick to my stomach. During another meeting where we went over everyone’s stats, Janet outdid herself in the callousness department. Mary’s average case processing time for our team metrics spreadsheet, was extremely high compared to the rest of the team, and Janet singled this out in front of the whole group, asking why this was. She told Mary that she will need to bring these numbers down, how it impacts the team average for metrics, and generally just harped on regarding the negative impact of these numbers. Mary appeared quite flustered at being singled out, as I have felt before when I have been made to justify numbers that are seen as undesirable. In many cases we have no control over our numbers – it all depends on if we have easy case work for the day or not.
Mary attempted to defend herself during this meeting, attributing the time taken to difficult cases, which is very reasonable. I can’t hit targets if I get several complex cases in a row and want to follow proper process. In Mary’s situation, however – the answer to high numbers was obvious: the psychological impact of the flood would clearly have taken a toll on her. Even if this wasn’t the reason, couldn’t Janet have picked a better day to crack onto someone about numbers. After pointing this out, Janet set work targets for Mary that day which I considered very unreasonable, considering Mary is newer to the company and had struggled to hit lower various bullshit metrics previously. Expecting the best of someone in terms of output coming off a major flood is just a scum bag move. I was internally screaming the whole time during this exchange at not just an utter lack of compassion– but a violation of human dignity. Of course, if someone’s house is flooded, they won’t be concerned with hitting the highest levels of output. Janet is so out of touch that it is scary. However it’s not just her. None of the other managers seemed concerned as well from what I could tell, and the company made no communications regarding the impact of floods to employees.
Now I come to the final part of this saga. A day or two later, I was in a combined work meeting with several teams. The subject of the floods came up and Janet said that thankfully “no one” in our team was impacted by it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and started to question my own sanity. These comments she made did not reflect reality at all. I don’t know if she was necessarily gas lighting, but she was definitely downplaying and invalidating our experience. As mentioned before, Mary had previously told Janet that two of her rooms were flooded. Another lady in our team, who we’ll call Patricia, also messaged previously on a work Facebook group our team has, advising that she was flooded, and sent through pictures of her flooded backyard. I couldn’t stand my manager spinning such a yarn of fiction, so in front of everyone said, “I was flooded.” The group went quiet and then Janet responded with something along the lines of, “but it didn’t actually come into your apartment, right?” I said that it didn’t, but was getting close to it, slowly creeping up our steps. I couldn’t even leave my apartment building at one stage, without having to wade through water, after walking down a certain number of steps from the main apartment door. The flood conversation was quickly dropped after my comments. I guess to be classified as being impacted by flooding, you have to be up to your neck in water, gasping for air. What an absolute joke, and how utterly insulting to those including myself who were impacted by this crisis. Mental health was of no concern to the company.
At this stage I don’t even know what to think. I feel like my faith in humanity was slightly shattered this week. I felt unbelievably depressed and drained of energy, and it was a miracle I could actually work at all. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack in the shower on Thursday, and felt extremely dizzy contending with all my thoughts regarding everything that is going on in the world from Ukraine, Covid, the floods, and how I was being treated at work. I realized that corporations don’t give a damn about their people, even during a flood crisis. Targets remain the same regardless of anything that happens in the world. If WW3 started, I am sure arbitrary metrics would remain the flavor of the day – and what a bitter revolting taste they leave. Time to get a pallet cleanser.
This subreddit has been of great solace to me recently, as I see that I am far from alone in my experiences. I’ve been treated like trash by Janet many times in my job, singled out when I don’t hit certain metrics, but the behavior I witnessed this week was jaw-dropping, and something else. I’ve being neglecting my health of late: not exercising, or eating enough due to workplace stress, but that changes now. I’m going to do both, but also going to start meditating as well, to bring my mind back to a healthy level of equilibrium. More than half our team at work has either been fired or quit for mental health reasons in the last six months, and I certainly see why. I’m not going to expend unnecessary energy at work. I’ve cared too much in the past. I’m definitely going to start investigating other career options, as well because this is not what I want from life. As this reddit group has made me realize: we deserve better – we are more than profit-generating cogs in a shit system! We are human beings who deserve respect. I would love to hear your comments on my experience, and also similar situations you might have encountered. I hope we all stay safe and well in these crazy times we are going through in the world. Looking out for each other is the most important thing.