I hope this kind of post is allowed.
When I worked in a grocery store, they'd ask questions like “you have 2 hours of overtime. We're not supposed to have any. How could this have happened?” Feigning full ignorance.
Like dude YOU closed with me the last two nights. You saw how behind the trucks were on deliveries. YOU were the one who says whether or not we can go home. This isn't rocket science. We're in our busy season and we're short staffed. You can't expect us to be able to straighten up the whole store and unload 2 trucks in an hour and a half. In fact, you weren't upset that we were staying late last night. You're only asking this question because your boss wants someone to answer for it.
Now I work in a call center and it's no different. We have metrics we need to hit to maintain efficiency. For example, management pushes one resolution every two hours. This means if the customer calls with an issue, after we solve it, they shouldn't need to call us back for at least 2 hours.
When I'm getting reviewed by my manager, it's always the same thing. “we have been observing your calls and we cannot detect any behaviors that could be the cause of your numbers being below our goal. Can you think of any behaviors that might be the cause of this?”
Why would I be able to detect these behaviors if you can't? Clearly, your metrics aren't measuring the right things. Check my survey scores, customers leave me EXCELLENT reviews, the best on our team. It's luck of the draw.
Customers call me to fix issues without know what information they need to fix the issue. I inform them of what they need, how to get it, and offer to help them get it if they want. If they say “no, I'll have to get that account number from my husband, I'll call back after he gets home in maybe 45 minutes” then I just have to eat it and my scores will reflect that. Nothing can be done. Some customers don't like the solutions I offer, so they call back just to have another person in my department tell them the exact same thing. I have no control over this, but management will NEVER admit this.
Management everywhere wants to live in some fantasy world where every fault can be attributed to something and the weight of responsibility is always on the bottom line. I wish I worked at a job where I could speak realistically to management and not have to hold my tongue because “they don't want to hear that.”