Cell phone for a second grader

"toypup" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:32:59 -0400, Aula wrote:
That wouldn't be a problem if there was a live person to talk to when the
initial call was made. Banty's reason for disliking machines is my second
reason for not liking those machines.

Well, we could ensure someone was available to callers at all times if the
taxpayers were willing to fund those positions. Since that isn't happening,
v/m needs to be left because the workers in my office are running case loads
of 300-400 people/month [much higher in some offices around the state] and
they simply cannot be sitting by their phone waiting for it to ring and
doing nothing else all day. And, while they are talking with person one,
persons three through seven call, so they still have to go to voice mail.
Someone is going to have to leave a message.

And, this is not just the case working in state government. I knew it to be
true in the private sector when I was there as well, and I'm sure it
continues. Those folks who continue to call and try to find a live person
are adding to the work load of the receptionist, which has at least
contributed to more than a few companies to fully automate the phone
answering system so that the person can spend their time at their other
functions. I understand that people want the information/answers to their
questions the minute after they dial the phone. What those same people need
to understand that their desire for immediacy does not constitute an
emergency on the part of the concern they are contacting in about 97% of the
situations I can think of. A return call within 24 hours is more than
reasonable.

Aula

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:00:48 -0400, Aula wrote:

What those same people need
to understand that their desire for immediacy does not constitute an
emergency on the part of the concern they are contacting in about 97% of the
situations I can think of. A return call within 24 hours is more than
reasonable.

Aula

When I'm at the pharmacy, I do not want to wait 24 hours for the doctor to
call back. I'm sick. I'm vomiting so much I am weak from dehydration. I
already waited at the ER. They rehydrated me and let me go. I got a
prescription that he messed up on. He'd better get back to the pharmacy in
minutes, not make the pharmacy staff leave a voice mail that takes 24 hours
to get back on.

Refills are a different matter. I don't mind waiting a few days for that.

"toypup" wrote in message
.. .
When I'm at the pharmacy, I do not want to wait 24 hours for the doctor to
call back. I'm sick. I'm vomiting so much I am weak from dehydration. I
already waited at the ER. They rehydrated me and let me go. I got a
prescription that he messed up on. He'd better get back to the pharmacy
in
minutes, not make the pharmacy staff leave a voice mail that takes 24
hours
to get back on.

Refills are a different matter. I don't mind waiting a few days for that.

Excellent example of the different situations. From my work: caller from
pharmacy who was just told that their Medicaid isn't going but they believe
they have active Medicaid should be dealt with then and there by whomever
can be placed on the phone but the person calling wanting to know if their
worker has processed their food stamp application yet can go to voice mail
and reasonably expect a return call within twenty four hours.

Aula

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:11:00 -0400, Aula wrote:

"toypup" wrote in message
.. .
When I'm at the pharmacy, I do not want to wait 24 hours for the doctor to
call back. I'm sick. I'm vomiting so much I am weak from dehydration. I
already waited at the ER. They rehydrated me and let me go. I got a
prescription that he messed up on. He'd better get back to the pharmacy
in
minutes, not make the pharmacy staff leave a voice mail that takes 24
hours
to get back on.

Refills are a different matter. I don't mind waiting a few days for that.

Excellent example of the different situations. From my work: caller from
pharmacy who was just told that their Medicaid isn't going but they believe
they have active Medicaid should be dealt with then and there by whomever
can be placed on the phone but the person calling wanting to know if their
worker has processed their food stamp application yet can go to voice mail
and reasonably expect a return call within twenty four hours.

Yeah, but if the pharmacy always has to leave a voice mail, it may be a
long while for both situations.

In article , Aula says...


"toypup" wrote in message
. ..
When I'm at the pharmacy, I do not want to wait 24 hours for the doctor to
call back. I'm sick. I'm vomiting so much I am weak from dehydration. I
already waited at the ER. They rehydrated me and let me go. I got a
prescription that he messed up on. He'd better get back to the pharmacy
in
minutes, not make the pharmacy staff leave a voice mail that takes 24
hours
to get back on.

Refills are a different matter. I don't mind waiting a few days for that.

Excellent example of the different situations. From my work: caller from
pharmacy who was just told that their Medicaid isn't going but they believe
they have active Medicaid should be dealt with then and there by whomever
can be placed on the phone but the person calling wanting to know if their
worker has processed their food stamp application yet can go to voice mail
and reasonably expect a return call within twenty four hours.

Assuming they *do* call back. And that callback isn't at 4:55 pm where your
office closes at 5:00, and my callback gets the off-hour recording, and I'm back
at the beginning

I fully understand that people can't all be lined up to receive ever call right
then and there.

But, for a lot of agencies, it's gone from occassionally needing to leave a
message, to needing to leave a message about half the time, to *nearly always*
needing to leave a message, and longer and longer callback delays. It's really
a matter of extent that's gotten so bothersome. And have driven basically
honest people like me to try to game the system a bit to get a live person.
Else I'd have to wait days for a resolution, or other prioirites pop up and I
end up giving up on the whole thing (which does decrease your workload).

Yeah I know taxpayer money and all that. It's just a part of the creeping crud,
where I have to wait to purchase an item because the cashier now has three other
roles and I need to get her attention to have the checkout counter manned, the
recursive unending ambigious telephone message menus, the power company help
number that has no path to get info about an electrical power outage unless I go
to the "I smell gas" part of the message menu and get a person, etc etc. People
are just getting fed up.

I know people getting around it adds to the workload, but then maybe it's time
to do the calculus as to what the crossover point is, where adding a few staff
would give enough responsiveness to lessen that problem.

Banty

"Banty" wrote in message
...
I know people getting around it adds to the workload, but then maybe it's
time
to do the calculus as to what the crossover point is, where adding a few
staff
would give enough responsiveness to lessen that problem.


and all of us understanding what price tag is involved with that. either
out of pocket costs go up for all of us or wages go down if we want more
staff in positions to respond to customers. i don't disagree with the need.
we're in real need of at least one more, if not two more positions at our
office and i know just about every place i've worked could have put a few
more folk to work without batting an eye. the problem is that those using
those very services don't want to pay more than they already are, but they
want a++ services. if folks want the latter, then they had better be
prepared to pony up the dollars. and, for those of us who work in jobs
where unions are involved in the equation need to get a grip on how much
they want to make v. how much they/we want more help on board. while i
appreciate the union-assisted public sector job pay i get [and i'd like a
higher salary, too!], i must recognize that i cannot get the same pay for
similar work in the private sector - and many of those private sector jobs
are based on government contracts with the government setting the salaries,
at least in part.

iow, we can't have our cake without paying for it. if you want superdelux
be prepared to dig deeper.

aula

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:44:04 -0400, Aula wrote:


iow, we can't have our cake without paying for it. if you want superdelux
be prepared to dig deeper.

aula

You know those supermarkets with really low prices but very, very long
lines? I don't shop there. I pay the premium for the ones where three is
a crowd.

Similarly, I don't patronize businesses where I can only speak to a
machine. I don't care how much I save doing business there. It's just not
worth it.

Sometimes, I don't have much choice, but it do vote with my dollars
whenever I get frustrated enough.

In article , toypup says...

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:44:04 -0400, Aula wrote:


iow, we can't have our cake without paying for it. if you want superdelux
be prepared to dig deeper.

aula

You know those supermarkets with really low prices but very, very long
lines? I don't shop there. I pay the premium for the ones where three is
a crowd.

Similarly, I don't patronize businesses where I can only speak to a
machine. I don't care how much I save doing business there. It's just not
worth it.

Sometimes, I don't have much choice, but it do vote with my dollars
whenever I get frustrated enough.

Yeah, I'm not an anti-tax person either.

But Aula, aside from being a misdirected on the tax thing, one of the thing
that's just sooo frustrating (speaking in general too) is that it can ALWAYS be
said "no money, too busy". It's like those who oppose any building that goes up
anywhere - "traffic more traffic, traffic bad". Well, there will always be
traffic. So the traffic complaint is there in their tool box, to pull out
whenever they don't like something. (And leave in if they support something.)

So whenever there is a problem with service, the retort is "people, money" and
"taxes" in your case as a public employee. Of course I don't know the details,
but I think a lot of these things (which I think is more widespread) have a lot
to do with PRIORITY. A partial solution to customer service, like a telephone
menu, gives those who manage an operation (public, private) a reason to deploy
people elsewhere, or just plain cut back. Never mind that that's only a
*partial* solution, and there's a big hole left in one of their functions.

I recall when my son was younger and going to an after school program, and I
nearly missed the very early (April 1 of the previous year) deadline to set up
bus transportation from the local school district to there in the afternoon. I
recommended to them that they send out flyers, or a mailing, as that deadline is
easy to miss. Their answer: (you can guess it....) money money time people
money time people taxes.

Lo and behold, the next school bond vote came up, and I got:
1. Two automated telephone messages to remind me of the election time and date
2. One mailing with bulk rates
3. Two take-home reminders from my son's class.

Hmmm. :-/

It's *priority*, not
money-people-money-time-time-people-taxes-taxes-blah-blah-blah.

Banty

"Banty" wrote in message
...

It's *priority*, not
money-people-money-time-time-people-taxes-taxes-blah-blah-blah.


You make a good point. Sometimes it is hard to pick some of these knots
apart to figure out which is the real issue, or the larger impacting one
anyway. The 'old' make more with less mantra has been rolling around these
hills for at least 20 year that I can recall. To be fair, and potentially
accurate, a number of businesses have downsized, some so far that there has
been an obvious negative impact to customers and staff alike.

While I believe my staff could handle slightly higher case loads, I have to
couch that by noting they are all very experienced. If several were new
they'd be floundering at levels lower than what we currently expect as the
norm. And, considering the aging of the staff, that is going to happen
sooner than later as a large number of folks, statewide, retire.

I also know that at my last place I saw the contract we worked on continue
cost neutral [ain't that a lovely term], but demanding higher numbers of
clients served and giving us less money to use to serve them as well. On
top of that we lost all our support staff [all two], although the agency
retained a receptionist. Staff had to perform all their own clerical
duties. Money, you know, at least that's what we were told. Turn over went
from nearly nothing to about 50% annually as staff left for higher paying
jobs that didn't leave them in the position of working on their own time in
order to finish required tasks because they were not yet adept at juggling
tasks and determining which could be put off reasonably. In fact, that was
a large contributing factor to my decision to leave: I was tired of
constantly interviewing, hiring and training new staff only to see them
depart without even finishing out a year. Clearly, in that place, at that
time, the priority was pleasing the contractor, not the staff [and sometimes
not the clients, imo].

I fear I'm rambling so I'll try to wrap this up. Priorities for line staff
are different from middle management are different from top and may well be
different from the official clients. For those who rely on tax dollars to
fund their programs/agencies there is a clear disconnect between voters
voting their pocketbooks and the [same?] voters complaining about the poor
services they receive. Private for profit industry may have an entirely
different set of circumstances and I am not familiar with them, having never
worked in that sector [I always worked in non-profits prior to this state
job stint.]

-Aula

Nan wrote:

LOL. People with these names have their career destiny already
spelled out for them :-)

Nan

Gay Sparrow sells real estate in Alexandria, Louisiana