So Phil has left the building. Apparently he has decided to seek opportunities outside of Sitel. We all know this is corporate lingo for "doesn't have another job to go to yet and only left because he was pressured in to doing so." Usually when a high profile person leaves a gushing email is sent out thanking everyone for being such amazing friends. A promise to stay in touch and an undertaking to go and get drunk soon are also pretty much de rigueur. For Phil the fanfare was conspicuously absent and instead we get a terse email from the site director two days after Phil left. All a bit cloak and dagger.
Back at the start of the year I wrote a piece suggesting that Phil had chosen to fall on his sword for the very evident problems setting up the new campaign on the second floor. I was as surprised as anyone when he returned from his sick leave and assumed I had horribly misjudged the situation. Now it's become clear that he is being made the fall guy after all and in my opinion there are some good reasons to do this. That being said Sitel should not think getting rid of Phil will solve anything other than the head on a platter to offer our, understandably annoyed, client. He only deserved around half the blame for the state of affairs that led to his demise and thus the other half has to be shared around a few other people. On his good days Phil was a great manager and always seemed to be a natural with the glad-handing of clients on site. Unfortunately he was also prone to some lapses of judgement and has paid a heavy price.
There has been a real culture of mediocrity in the office at times. A quick fix fire-fighting approach rather than taking a longer view. Outsourcing is a funny business. Just because six months can be a long time in this industry doesn't mean we should give in to short term thinking. Hopefully the changes that are happening in upper management on site will mean the company starts thinking a bit more about the next year or two as well as planning the next couple of weeks.
