The anonymous bloggers handbook

I'm sure there are a few of you out there who have considered writing a blog like mine. My advice would be don't do it. I love writing blogs and so thought this would be a breeze but actually writing with the Sword of Damocles hanging over you is not so much fun. You have to be paranoid in every aspect of your writing and preparation. If you're still reading and still thinking about creating your own blog here's what I recommend.

First of all assume you will be sacked if you get found out because if your writing is controversial you will. The history of the internet is littered with people who have lost their jobs for what they said about their companies in blogs or on facebook or twitter etc. If you start from that premise then you're working in the right direction.

The next step is to create new accounts for everything i.e. A new email account and a new blog account. Don’t host any pictures, if you use them, on your own flickr account etc. When you set these accounts up give fictitious names and other personal details and create new passwords for everything. In theory there is no way for Sitel to persuade your email or blog provider to give up your information but don’t risk it.

Don’t tell anyone you're the blogger. Even if these people have nothing to do with your company or you think you can trust them with your life I implore you not to tell anyone. Not your best friend, not your partner/wife/husband, not even your priest in the confessional. If you really must tell someone chances are blogging anonymously is not for you.

Don’t put anything that can lead to you in the text of your blogs. By all means put in subtle misinformation. For example where I said in a previous entry I had recently been given a late form that was a lie. I haven't had a late form in ages and it was a bluff. Or maybe me saying I haven’t had a late form in ages is a double bluff and I'm on my final written warning for lateness. or perhaps me saying it's a double bluff is a triple bluff and the original bit about the late form is true. Or maybe... You get the idea.

Proof read everything properly. When you finish proof reading go back and check again for anything that might lead to you. I've refrained from writing a couple of entries that I think you would like because I couldn't be sure if anyone else knew the details of the story and thus I would be found out that way. Take a moment to consider your sources of information. If someone has told you something and you publish it you may be getting them in to trouble.

This is not the complete extent of what I've done to keep safe as I do need to keep a couple of the details to myself. There are multiple layers of security and paranoia between me and the pages of this blog. Read some internet forums for more tips. As the adage of the 7 P's tells us. Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. In this case piss poor performance means you looking for a new job.

Finally let me wish you well in your blog if you do decide to write one.

Data protection or.....

Data protection is a subject that maybe we all ought to take a little more seriously than we sometimes do. This was highlighted last week when a lot of emails went around regarding a popular online children's game (remember no names on this blog) that is handled by one of our sister sites. It seems that someone managed to add just about every email user in Sitel worldwide to their internal distribution list. In the grand scheme of things it's not the worst data protection breach ever. For most of us it was just an amusing start to our day. Something to talk about by the coffee machine. No harm done.

Data protection is nonetheless a serious business. Which is why I find it hard to bite my tongue when someone tries to use it as an excuse for something completely unrelated. This has happened to me a couple of times. For example I once had an operations manager tell me to put my bag under my desk rather than on it "Because the data protection act says you have to".

No it doesn't.

Data protection law says that nobody has the right to see any potentially sensitive information about you without your say so and that companies must take steps to ensure that only those who need it to do their work have access to your data. It doesn’t mention the placement of employees bags at all as far as I can tell. Anecdotal evidence suggests I'm not the only person to have minor company policy presented to me as legal requirement. Why would this bother me? Simply because it's wrong. By using it as a bullshit excuse to make company policy seem more important you're actually making data protection law seem less important. When you work with members of the public for any length of time you tend to get a highly developed bullshit detector and that incident just made this person look stupid.

If something is a legal requirement that's fine. We know companies have laws to follow just the same as we all have laws to follow outside of work. Likewise if it's company policy just say so. We're used to petty rules and we really don’t mind. It's just part of life. As for the person who altered the email distribution list last week. I bet you feel a right plonker now.

To pull a sickie press #1...

I had the misfortune, a couple of weeks ago, to come down with a cold that's been doing the rounds. I could barely speak because of my sore throat. Reaching for the phone I called the absence line to hear things had changed since I last called in sick. "For this team press #1 and for that team press #2" the recording told me. Really? Are you going to put me on hold for five minutes as well just so you can say "Your call is important to us so please continue to hold"? I dutifully pressed the appropriate number and spoke to a random team manager from my floor. After making sure I sounded as ill as I felt I turned my phone off and went back to sleep.

It got me thinking later as I sat on the sofa surrounded by Lemsip and tissues. Watching daytime TV and wondering where Jeremy Kyle dredges his show participants up from leaves you time to ponder other things. Do Sitel really think this will make any difference to their levels of absence? First of all let's ignore the people who always go in to work unless they are properly ill. This is clearly aimed at the people who wake up and see, like this weekend, that the weather is far too nice and decide to replace speaking to people on the phones all day with a spot of sailing or something. Although I'm sure this measure, which has been in place for ages according to a colleague, wont hurt. I really don't see it doing any good either. After all if someone is swinging the lead then surely this isn't going to make any difference to the 'Sunbathing vs Office' equation. It strikes me as changing process and procedure to prove the site is 'doing something' about sick levels. There is sometimes a desperate need for improvements to be visible so that someone somewhere can point to it in a meeting and say "look what we did." The effectiveness of the idea doesn't always hold much sway.

If you have an idea, humorous or sensible, that you think would help improve the levels of absence on the site then drop me a line at sitelblogger@hushmail.com and I'll put any good ones up here in the next week or two. As always I'm as keen to protect your identity as you are. So rest assured you can contact me in absolute confidence with this or any other ideas you might have for this blog.

It's now what you know.

Did you hear about that senior police officer in North Yorkshire last month who nearly got himself sacked for nepotism? He was under a lot of pressure to resign and was given a final written warning for his conduct. Oh how different things would be at Sitel Exeter if management took such a severe line with nepotism and cronyism. For those of you unfamiliar with the terms. Nepotism is putting your family ahead when it comes to jobs and cronyism is sorting out your friends with jobs regardless of ability. Neither practice has any place in the modern workplace in my view. The recently departed operations manager Phil gave us a prime example of why this shouldn't happen. It's pretty common knowledge that Phil runs a Sunday league football team called Exeter Phoenix FC. That team has had around a third of its 30 man squad pass through the doors of Sitel at one point or another and to the best of my knowledge all but one of them has been given opportunities to climb the career ladder. What are the chances?

If you look at the performances of those who have both played for Phils team and been promoted at Sitel it's not all bad news. A couple of them have definitely deserved to get ahead. Richard on the second floor seems to be a capable and efficient team manager. On the other hand there have been a couple of horror stories too. Chris Clows time with Sitel has become the stuff of legend for all the wrong reasons. He left the company months ago and yet just a week ago out on smokers corner someone brought him and his abilities as a team manager up in conversation. How did he manage to get promoted and stay ahead if he was such a poor worker? Simple really. Played football with one operations manager, Phil. Best of friends with another operations manager, Shane, and was father to the HR managers grandson. Game, Set and Match.

It is my hope that as the new senior management structure works itself out we will see more promotions based on ability and less based on who you drink with or share your bed with. This does not mean you can't promote a friend. Quite the opposite. If you get on well with someone and they are genuinely capable that's a good thing. On the other hand if you promote a friend who say has a lot of late or sick over another more suitable candidate then people are, rightly, going to get annoyed.

Mounting attrition.

The bloodbath among team managers on the second floor continues. Amid all the gossip around our operations manager leaving without any warning it should not be overlooked that yet another team manager has decided it's time to move on. This time it was Martyn and that's no real surprise. He hasn't looked happy for some time. You have to question how seriously Sitel are taking the issue of team manager attrition. If my maths is correct that floor is losing a team manager every 45 days on average. Unfortunately this includes some good hard working people. Whats even worse is it's not simply a case of better work or pay luring these people away. Some are choosing to take worse pay within the company to not be team managers any more and the rest are just leaving. I only know of one case where a departing team manager has gone on to a better job straight away.

So answers on a postcard. Who's going to be our next team manager casualty. I could name who I think is leaving next but that would spoil the surprise for you.

Phil

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.

Making constant changes. UPDATED

Sometime it's hard to understand why Sitel shows such a lack of clear direction. It's almost like nobody takes the time to step back and think about things from a different perspective.

A quick note here. When I started this blog I promised myself I wouldn't name any of the clients directly. After all this is about Sitel not the companies who use our services. However if I were to talk about a team on the first floor that handles calls for a major high street fashion retailer you would all know who I was talking about.

This team has had several changes of team manager over the past few months. Andy who took over the reins of that team some time ago was moved sideways to another position in the middle of last year. Sian was asked to move up from her senior agent role to manage the team. Then, as many retailers do, there was an increased workload over the Christmas period and Greg was brought in from another campaign to help with the managers workload. So far so good. So why have the company brought in a new manager from outside the company and moved Sian back down to her senior agent position?

Was it a mistake to move Andy off to the other team? He had been running it for a couple of years. Were both Sian and Greg unable to run the team  properly? That would show a worrying lack of diligence in selecting candidates to move up the career ladder. How about a clash of personality with senior management? A lack of ass kissing? The truth is I don't know the reasons for such volatility.

I'm not sure I would want to be the new team manager. If the team is on their fourth manager in less than a year then that would have me looking over my shoulder all the time. Either the team is a poison chalice or more likely Sitel dont know what they want and then complain when they don't get it. Hopefully we're now moving into a period of stabilty because constant changes are not good for the agents and are not good for the client.

Update 15th June 2011

Since I wrote this entry someone has been in touch anonymously. This person has suggested that Sian was removed from team manager duties due to a serious lapse of judgement. As I haven't been able to verify the allegation yet I wont repeat it here. Suffice to say if true then the decision to remove her appears justified.

One thing bothers me though. we have a Team Manager Track aimed at identifying candidates for promotion internally. Why not recruit a suitable internal candidate if they were forced to replace Sian?