Paradise Part 4

Coworkers filed into their cubicles as the morning ticked away.  RB noted various conversations softly buzzing around the office but couldn’t understand the words.  He wasn’t really listening to them anyway.  It was all static that filled his ringing ears. 

By 8:00, office cubicles were occupied and actual work was starting.  Each coordinator had their stack of mail and the process began of reading customer correspondence and writing a reply.  It was a never ending cycle and there was always more mail coming in than going out.  There was a goal of replying to every piece or mail within 30 days.  Each time the office got closer to 30 day replies, management had meetings with the staff, stressing the importance of adhering to the goal.  After each meeting, individuals would congregate around various cubicles griping about the meeting they just attended.

It was always the same.  It was a cycle like the never ending deluge of mail that was delivered to the office 2 times per day.  Management never actually said it but the impression from the rank and file was they weren’t working hard enough.  Each writer had a goal of completing 20 letters per day.  If you couldn’t finish this task in a normal 8 hour day, you were expected to work longer.  If you finished your 20 early, you were expected to do more. 

A young lady who had been in the department for 3 years began calling it “The Bad Place.”  The name had stuck.  It was a sanitized way to say what everyone felt.  It was a black hole.  How many places can a person work where you go nothing but negative feedback for 8 or more hours a day, 5 days a weeks?  Piled on top of that was constant pressure to get the work done.  Many people realized early in their career in this corporate customer service department the only thing they had was each other and their home lives. 

RB felt fortunate he developed a system to working his mail.  He normally began his day at 7:00 AM and cranked the letters out like crazy the first three hours.  His goal was to complete 10 letters by 10:00 AM.  Then he had until 3:15 PM to finish the remaining 10 letters.  In his mind, RB could relax for the bulk of the day, confident he would reach his goal in plenty of time.  When he had time, he would work extra mail.  He wanted to average 21 pieces a mail per day each month.  This looked good during his annual review and it gave him a buffer for days if he was going to fall short.

RB heard a voice from the other side of the cubicle wall.  “Oh, for the love of God!”  Olga often voiced this phrase as she read letters from unhappy, demanding customers. 

Turing to face the wall and raising his head, RB asked, “What is it this time, Olga?”

“Listen to this idiot: ‘You people ruined my dream vacation.  I saved for 2 years to go on this European cruise and because you cancelled the flight, I missed 3 days of the cruise and my luggage never arrived.  I will never fly you people again.  I demand you reimburse the expenses you caused and give me free and my family free first class tickets.” 

“Let me guess, they bought coach tickets and planned to arrive in Europe hours before their cruise was scheduled to leave.”

“Bingo!”

“Don’t you love how people say they won’t fly us anymore but still want free tickets?”

When people asked what RB did for a living, he always replied he worked in the corporate complaint department.  If the conversation went long enough, someone inevitably asked about people lying in their letter just to get something.  Over years of handling customer complaints, RB honestly felt the number of people who actually lied just to get something was miniscule.  He believed it to be less than 1%.  People who wrote did so because there were multiple service failures.  It was rare to get a letter that had only one issue unless it was a particularly egregious one.  The majority of mail contained some sort of flight irregularity couple with poor handling by an airport agent or flight attendant.  Too often, they also suffered delayed luggage.  RB understood why they wrote.  A major company shouldn’t have this many problems. 

RB and his coworkers were tasked with winning back these unhappy customers.  Were they all happy customers at the end of the day?  No, but RB felt most were willing to give them one more chance.  RB always promised to share the letter with the “appropriate department for further review.”  RB did do this but wondered if anyone was actually reading what he forwarded.  At least now that he was working directly with the executives, he felt someone would.  The CEO was a man that would personally look into things he didn’t like.  He was sure they wouldn’t want the CEO bugging them about how they were going to make improvements.