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The Blur

Questions Thread

By The Blur, in General Chat

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Vacamion

Vacamion

Posted
Posted

Question - well alright, some background, and then a question...

 

I work a split between working from home and working from an office.

 

I've got a colleague doing the same job who started in the last 18 months and it's becoming gruesomely apparent that during my colleague's periods allegedly "working from home", he ain't working. 

 

Since I don't recognise him on FoxesTalk (hardly surprising given the rarity of City fans up here) I will assume that he is spending his days either trolling teenage girls or pumping himself dry whilst watching Jeremy Kyle and scoffing tesco value custard creams. Who knows...

 

I've recently been fielding more and more "overspill" calls from my colleague's customers, complaining that they are struggling to get a return call or response to their e-mail.  He doesn't come into the office as much as he should.  When you try to call him you always get voicemail and no return call and I haven't had a response to my e-mails to him over the last few days, the last couple of which have told  him that I've noticed that he appears to be falling behind with his work and offered to help him out if he wants.

 

He is still alive - he came in the office for 45 seconds while I was on the phone the yesterday and was gone before I could talk to him. 

 

Our boss is a relatively young and inexperienced bloke, based remotely down in Leeds, who we see every couple of months.  That works fine if you are getting on with your job and he tends to leave me be for weeks on end, but the boss only has a vague idea that one half of our Glasgow operation is going tits up.

 

My question - would you keep your head down, get on with your own work and leave the young boss in Leeds to find out that it's going tits up after its gone tits up (after all, he gets paid "boss" wages to oversee this stuff) or would you grass your young failing colleague up to the boss? 

 

What would you lot do?

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Captain...

Captain...

Posted
Posted

Question - well alright, some background, and then a question...

I work a split between working from home and working from an office.

I've got a colleague doing the same job who started in the last 18 months and it's becoming gruesomely apparent that during my colleague's periods allegedly "working from home", he ain't working.

Since I don't recognise him on FoxesTalk (hardly surprising given the rarity of City fans up here) I will assume that he is spending his days either trolling teenage girls or pumping himself dry whilst watching Jeremy Kyle and scoffing tesco value custard creams. Who knows...

I've recently been fielding more and more "overspill" calls from my colleague's customers, complaining that they are struggling to get a return call or response to their e-mail. He doesn't come into the office as much as he should. When you try to call him you always get voicemail and no return call and I haven't had a response to my e-mails to him over the last few days, the last couple of which have told him that I've noticed that he appears to be falling behind with his work and offered to help him out if he wants.

He is still alive - he came in the office for 45 seconds while I was on the phone the yesterday and was gone before I could talk to him.

Our boss is a relatively young and inexperienced bloke, based remotely down in Leeds, who we see every couple of months. That works fine if you are getting on with your job and he tends to leave me be for weeks on end, but the boss only has a vague idea that one half of our Glasgow operation is going tits up.

My question - would you keep your head down, get on with your own work and leave the young boss in Leeds to find out that it's going tits up after its gone tits up (after all, he gets paid "boss" wages to oversee this stuff) or would you grass your young failing colleague up to the boss?

What would you lot do?

First thing I would do would be speak to your colleague, make him aware that you have received a number of complaints and want to make sure he isn't having any problems, which it sounds like you have done, but I would try harder. If you still don't get any response I would alert your boss to all complaints made about him, give him the facts, you can omit any of your own suspicions and problems if you don't want to make life more difficult for yourself. But facts are facts if customers are repeatedly complaining to you about your colleague then you need to make your boss aware of it. It is not grassing, you're not at school and this isn't the playground, this is a job, and if it goes tits up and your boss finds out you were aware of these problems and didn't say anything you will be in the firing line too.

If you want to keep yourself further out of it then you could suggest to the next customer that complains that they contact your boss directly keeping you out of it. Either way something needs to be done.

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Orkneyfox

Orkneyfox

Posted
Posted

Question - well alright, some background, and then a question...

 

I work a split between working from home and working from an office.

 

I've got a colleague doing the same job who started in the last 18 months and it's becoming gruesomely apparent that during my colleague's periods allegedly "working from home", he ain't working. 

 

Since I don't recognise him on FoxesTalk (hardly surprising given the rarity of City fans up here) I will assume that he is spending his days either trolling teenage girls or pumping himself dry whilst watching Jeremy Kyle and scoffing tesco value custard creams. Who knows...

 

I've recently been fielding more and more "overspill" calls from my colleague's customers, complaining that they are struggling to get a return call or response to their e-mail.  He doesn't come into the office as much as he should.  When you try to call him you always get voicemail and no return call and I haven't had a response to my e-mails to him over the last few days, the last couple of which have told  him that I've noticed that he appears to be falling behind with his work and offered to help him out if he wants.

 

He is still alive - he came in the office for 45 seconds while I was on the phone the yesterday and was gone before I could talk to him. 

 

Our boss is a relatively young and inexperienced bloke, based remotely down in Leeds, who we see every couple of months.  That works fine if you are getting on with your job and he tends to leave me be for weeks on end, but the boss only has a vague idea that one half of our Glasgow operation is going tits up.

 

My question - would you keep your head down, get on with your own work and leave the young boss in Leeds to find out that it's going tits up after its gone tits up (after all, he gets paid "boss" wages to oversee this stuff) or would you grass your young failing colleague up to the boss? 

 

What would you lot do?

The first thing to do here is protect yourself. You don't know this guy and you don't have to work alongside him very much so that is a bonus. What you have to be sure of is that you don't get the blame for the shortcomings in the Glasgow office. Do your line mangers systems allow him to tell which of you is falling down or will it just look like "Glasgow has ****ed up"? Keep notes, keep a dossier, keep records of complaints. After a while if you e mail this guy copy your boss in to the message. I think that having a word with the miscreant first is probably the honest thing to do but if a short word doesn't do the trick do tell your boss.  You can say you are concerned about your colleague, worried about his health etc etc. There may be genuine things the guy needs help with or trained on or he may just like watching BabeStation recorded on Sky plus.

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Vacamion

Vacamion

Posted
Posted

 Do your line mangers systems allow him to tell which of you is falling down or will it just look like "Glasgow has ****ed up"?

 

Yeah, if my manager is alterted to this, our systems will show that it is my colleague is falling down, not both of us, so I could just carry on managing my own work, put my fingers in my ears whilst singing "la la la" and wait for my colleague's workload to explode.  I don't now think I'm going to do this, however.  Apart from the fact that it would damage my company and disappoint our customers, I would be the one left having to pick up his workload if he can't do it. 

 

 

Do you have a record of the complaints from customers?

 

Yeah. I am keeping tracks on my colleague's customers who have phoned me, to see if he has done anything to address their complaints.  Nothing so far. 

 

 

Having thought abut it, I think I'm going to have to alert the boss to it.

 

I've given this bloke plenty of opportunity to sort himself out, to respond to me or to service his customers.  If he returns my call or comes in the office, I'm just going to have to have a tough conversation (probably not quite in the manner suggested by BoneDog!) and outline the effect his actions (or lack of) are having on his customers and colleagues.

 

:)

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Rincewind

Rincewind

Posted
Posted (edited)

Like someone said, if you tell the boss that you are concerned about this fella and wondering if he has any family issues that prevent him doing his job properly it won't be like informing or dropping him in it because it will be the boss that deals with it. Anything like that they will have someone that can discuss things in private with him. If he is just shirking it will show. You have tried your best to help him.

 

Just reread the reply of the above post. If you do nothing the boss may want to know why if you knew it was him why were you covering for him.

Get in first, apologise for the delay and say you were trying to find out why and encourage the fella to improve. Inititive from you.

Edited by Rincewind
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pSinatra

pSinatra

Posted
Posted

Can bananas kill you?

 

I eat far too many of them.....a bunch a day (5 or 6 bananas).  I love 'em.

 

Today, one of my customers told me that if I eat too many they could kill me.  I know too much of anything can be poisonous but are bananas particularly dangerous?

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21st Century Fox

21st Century Fox

Posted
Posted (edited)

Can bananas kill you?

 

I eat far too many of them.....a bunch a day (5 or 6 bananas).  I love 'em.

 

Today, one of my customers told me that if I eat too many they could kill me.  I know too much of anything can be poisonous but are bananas particularly dangerous?

 

I'm sure there's a Zeppelin bootleg where John Bonham collapses because he ate 27 bananas in a day  lol Also I think Gordon Brown used to each about 10 bananas a day when he was in office.

 

I guess it's feasible you could get potassium poisoning but you'd probably have to eat even more than 27 a day and be able to continue eating through the crippling stomach cramps.

Edited by 21st Century Fox
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Mike Oxlong

Mike Oxlong

Posted
Posted

Can bananas kill you?

 

I eat far too many of them.....a bunch a day (5 or 6 bananas).  I love 'em.

 

Today, one of my customers told me that if I eat too many they could kill me.  I know too much of anything can be poisonous but are bananas particularly dangerous?

Only if you nick a bunch from a gorilla.

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sphericalfox

sphericalfox

Posted
Posted

Can bananas kill you?

 

I eat far too many of them.....a bunch a day (5 or 6 bananas).  I love 'em.

 

Today, one of my customers told me that if I eat too many they could kill me.  I know too much of anything can be poisonous but are bananas particularly dangerous?

 

only if you're not eating them with your mouth

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pSinatra

pSinatra

Posted
Posted

I'm sure there's a Zeppelin bootleg where John Bonham collapses because he ate 27 bananas in a day  lol Also I think Gordon Brown used to each about 10 bananas a day when he was in office.

 

I guess it's feasible you could get potassium poisoning but you'd probably have to eat even more than 27 a day and be able to continue eating through the crippling stomach cramps.

 

27 bottles of banana vodka?

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Webbo

Webbo

Posted
Posted (edited)

Has anyone ever been to Rome? How far is the airport to the city? How much are we talking roughly for a taxi fare?

Right going to book a city break tonight. Can't decide between Rome and Berlin. Berlin is cheaper(holiday wise, not sure once you're there) but colder. Any recommendations?

Edited by Webbo
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