I want to be sure to preface everything here by saying that I loved my time at SG, I think it is absolutely a great place to work for the right type of person, but there are some serious issues that need to be brought to light and discussed. The length of the con section vs the pro section should not be taken as an indication of job happiness. I simply spent more time on one because I think it can do more good.
Since I lack the vehicle for an actual discussion about these things, my hope is that at the very least, I can create one internally and hopefully in a way that will finally be taken seriously. I urge everyone reading this to not dismiss these concerns as the rantings of an angry ex employee, I'm not mad, I care so much about you all and I wish things were better for you.
- The Support team lets the same abusive customers call in and abuse workers time after time with little to no regard for the mental health or stress level of the person taking that call. They will say "you don't have to take that" to your face, but then when the same person calls in again 5 minutes later, they expect you to hop to it and answer the phone. This is not good enough. This is not a hospital or some sort of emergency service, peoples lives are not on the line here, and yet the expectation is that you be ready for abuse from the same 5 problem customers at a moments notice.
- I understand that you're willing to die on the "we're not a call center" hill in support but please understand that you are indeed a call center. No one has given a non-semantic reason for this, its all "we don't have quotas" and "you're allowed to take breaks" but that is not really the argument anyone is making. A call center, is a support center that mainly takes calls. That's it. Since support is 100% focused on phones, and everything you do revolves around phones, you're a call center, congratulations.
- The support team has a very high tolerance for wasted time (maybe a pro?). There are several "committees" that are run by heroes with little or no supervision that accomplish absolutely nothing. An example would be the LTC "committee". In the words of a former member "This committee is an absolute waste of time, invented to make the people in it feel better about their daily role and act as an excuse to get off the phone for an hour". This has gone on for over a year with NOTHING to show for itself. There is no excuse for this, it is simply not good enough. This comes at the expense of the people who care enough about the team to answer calls and do their job. Several times, as a result of the LTC there have been 3 or fewer heroes on calls during normal business hours. These HEROES (all caps because they deserve it and because this is all the recognition they'll get for it) are then forced to stand there and get hit with call after call after call until the LTC deigns it acceptable for them to come back and do their job.
This is not to say that all committees are bad or time wasters. I've been part of a very successful one that has actual measurables that it can point to and say "Yes we did that". Tangible things we delivered to the company. LTC has nothing and that is not good enough.
P.S. I know you’re making a schlocky film or whatever but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Support doesn’t need that, Zingerman's did great with theirs, use that. Support needs you on the phone and every single time you go to that meeting you are letting people down, and it is shameful that you couldn’t do anything of note in over a year. Your work is not good enough. I promise I’m not the only one who thinks so. If you care about your team and co-workers you won’t belittle them by attending one of these meetings.
- Upper management seems to care very little, if at all, for the people underneath them anymore. There was more than one instance of someone not receiving a cost of living adjustment for which they were scheduled and that was previously discussed. The people affected by this were given nothing but "we're working on it" and "we'll make it right" and then weeks stretched into months without it. That is not good enough. The same people, some at SG, some not anymore, never received it to date. Worse yet, some people were not even given reasoning for this or outright lied to.
- There is very little with regards to advancement in the support team. There is exactly one avenue to get a small bump that changes nothing about your day to day. Same responsibilities, same job, same desk, different title, slight pay bump. This is not good enough and the very definition of a superficial raise. It is also worth mentioning that the advancement process is 100% on the person who wishes to advance to prove their worth to management. There is a checklist (some items on it aren't even under your control, because everyone always says the best way to feel you earned something is to have a bit of randomness in it right?) that you are expected to fill out and then present to leadership as a sort of "am I worthy yet?" attempt to get noticed. This is deeply concerning because it speaks to a larger lack of training or tools in the leadership in place and all the work in this process should not fall on the employee only to get a "no" or "not yet, here are additional tasks" at the end (if you're going to do that, what was the checklist for?).
- Communication is (say it with me) not good enough. Most of the above issues, could be easily assuaged with some level of communication about changes that affect the workers. In this regard SG drops the ball consistently and constantly. There will be promises of "we'll communicate changes like this better in the future" but that will never come.
- There are serious interdepartmental shortcomings with regards to the support team. On multiple occasions I’ve held conversations with sales people (some of whom are friends) and they had no idea of some absolute roadblock of a bug and just sold the feature to someone. There is no attempt made for them to rectify that at all, the only focus is on how to sell it and that is not good enough. If you’re going to make a company value “Giving Great Service” I’d suggest the sales staff try doing some work in support on occasion so they can understand how comfortable the piles of money they sit on are. They're all smiles and buddy-buddy when they need you for something and after that they're ghosts. They're also more than willing to sell outright broken features to people and talk down to support heroes when it doesn't work.
