Fraud!

One of my duties at work (since the other supervisors only rarely seem to do it) is to identify problems with the computers at the interviewing stations. Granted, these are not top-of-the-line models; most of them still run Windows 95, if that's any clue. Nevertheless, they work well enough for what we need. Except, of course, when they're not working properly.

When I see a computer with a problem, I first try to swap out components—mouses, keyboards, monitors, and such. But there are some problems I can't fix, like Windows refusing to boot. So in these cases, I leave a note for the I.T. guy describing the problem. I also leave a note taped to the monitor of the computer in question with a brief description of the problem, the date, and my initials. That way, when someone comes to fix it, they know what to look for, who diagnosed the problem, and when.

We have an interviewer—let's call her Eileen—who loves her privacy. She enjoys peace and quiet in the workplace. In fact, she gets annoyed when people sit too close to her. She has a special place staked out in one of the corners, where not too many other stations are located and there's not much traffic. And generally, people don't sit by her (because she gets cranky). When people do sit by her, it's a sure bet that by the end of the shift, she's going to make her way to one of the managers or supervisors—yours truly, more often than not—and complain about the noise level. Even if the people are only talking loud enough just to do their jobs, it's too loud for her.

Today's shift was small, and a lot of our regulars weren't in attendance, including Eileen. So as I was making my rounds about the call floor, I stayed a few moments longer in Eileen's corner than I usually would have. And I noticed something. The five computers nearest her favorite station all had notes on the monitors. I looked more closely, and found that four of the five notes included a brief description of the problem, the date, and my initials.

Only one of these four notes was in my handwriting, though.

Conclusion: Eileen had written and placed the other notes herself to make sure nobody else sat in 'her' area.

I first made Diesel120, one of my fellow managers, aware of the situation. Then I had Jason, the Field Director of the call center, come out and take a look. I'd like to say that we were surprised, but that was only half true. That she would try to discourage other interviewers from sitting near her, we all knew. But that she would, in essence, try to forge a manager's initials to do it, was a little more than we expected.

So Jason is going to have a little chat with her tomorrow. I hope that will be the end of it—but I know that it won't. She'll come to me and try either to deny or to justify what she did, probably the latter. And I'll have to tell her that I'm going to be watching her very, very carefully for the next few weeks. After all, if she's willing to lie to get her peace and quiet, I have to assume that she's also willing to lie in other aspects of her job: time management, productivity, and maybe even falsification of surveys. And I'll have to tell her that if I ever catch her trying to use my identity at work again, I won't bother with Diesel120 or Jason. I'll fire her myself.

Or maybe she'll finally just decide that our call center is just inherently too noisy for her tastes and resign, maybe seeking work at the local library or something.

I should be so fortunate.