“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.” **
So without going into specifics (because it’s the internet and who knows what people do with facts anymore) the job I do every day is, essentially, a customer service gig. We don’t support the general public, but support the operations of my employer. We serve all of my coworkers as customers. Confusing enough?
Anyhow, since we have a focus on customer service and have standard corporate performance measurements to maintain, on a regular basis we send surveys to our customers to ask how we did so they can grade us and provide feedback.
Fairly standard stuff. If the surveys for my team come in good, then fabulous. It’s logged and reported and so forth. If a survey comes in bad, then a member of the team that collates responses will discreetly make a copy and slide it onto my desk. This usually happens when I am off in a meeting or something so they don’t have to make eye contact. It’s all very clandestine.
Bad surveys happen. It’s normal. I usually review them, see what the beef is about and move on.
Except for yesterday. Yesterday gave me pause. I returned to my office to find the dreaded folded sheet of paper on my desk. “Ugh” was my first thought as I unfolded and read the survey.
It was a good time. Suffice to say, my team was blamed for everything wrong in this person’s life, including (and I’m not kidding) the reason the person is leaving our institution to go work somewhere else. All our fault.
The words “byzantine” and “Kafkaesque” were used. And after looking up what those words meant, I was really offended.
Just kidding, I wasn’t offended. To be honest if bureaucratic, surreal and nightmarish processes aren’t your bag, then working anywhere that receives federal funding is not going to be a fun time.
This unhappy person did wrap up by saying they thought my employee that they worked with lovely, but the processes were ugly.
Fair enough.
To be honest, I appreciate this customer for giving me the first good laugh I’ve ever had over a bad survey response.
And the search for just the right image for this post was also a nice distraction from my byzantine day.
I think I nailed it:
**An actual Franz Kafka quote that just supremely fit this post