New Time Wasting In-Take Policy

So it is time for another post about how this company is stupid and they find another way to waste customers' and employees' time.  This time I will talk about the new in-take policy we have for when we take in a computer for service.  Regardless of what the computer is coming in for I'm supposed to try to sell every additional service and part under the sun to the customer.  Now I feel like when a customer brings in a computer for service that I should ask, "Would you like to hear my speel on how you can waste more money today on top of what it costs to fix your computer?" 

Not only am I supposed to offer all of these services to customers I am also supposed to run a program that they like to call, the in-take analysis.  This program has got to be the biggest waste of time in the existence of time wasting.  All the program does is check how much memory you have, how much hard drive space you have, if you have an antivirus/firewall installed, and space used up by temperary files.  I can look those things up in a matter of minutes instead of the 20-30 minutes it takes for a single in-take analysis to run.  While this program is running I am supposed to gather information from the customer that they could give two shits about.  After I get their story, I have to go to another computer to look up how much memory they can go up to, and how much it will cost.  If it is a laptop I am also supposed to look up a spare power adapter and a spare battery.  Granted if we offer these things enough times one person will eventually say yes, even though our parts prices are marked up 30% above the actual cost.  But what about the 90% of people say they don't want anything, I just wasted those 10 minutes looking up information that they don't even care about.  Those are 10 wasted minutes I will never get back.  Plus if they are bringing in a computer for a serious issue they aren't going to be interested in upgrading they just want the damn thing working.  "I see that you are bringing your computer in because it caught on fire, would you like to add more memory to speed it up?" 

I'm going to throw a little math your way, so hopefully I don't freak out some of those that hate math.  If we take in 30 computers a week and most of them run like shit when they come in, it takes 30 minutes to complete the in-take analysis while bullshitting finding other stuff they won't buy.  That's 900 minutes of just taking in computers.  If we take those 900 minutes and divide by 60 minutes we find that 15 hours has been used just to take in new jobs.  That's not even completing any of the work they are originally bringing it in for.  Some of the techs that work in our store may only have 15 hours a week.  Basically you are telling one employee to come in this week just to take in computers but do nothing else.  It is completely retarded.  Especially when we are expected to perform 5 different tasks at a time.

To enforce the fact that we HAVE to run this stupid in-take analysis and perform all the parts quotes, we are required to call a manager over for every computer we take in to verify the information and try to upsell more.  Lately, I and other associates don't really give a shit so we don't even page a manager over.  Then later on the managers go through all the "envelopes" and sign off on each one.  If we don't fill out the envelope 100% or have an in-take analysis printed out with the work order, we are threatened to be written up.  "Why were you fired from your last job?" "Oh I didn't fill out a paper completely."  Meanwhile associates who steal or don't even show up to work are still working.  Go figure.

ASAT

So it's that time of year again where the company sends out the Associate Satisfaction Survey, that employees are encouraged to fill out honestly. Every year the ASAT keeps returning low scores, instead of trying to fix dissatisfaction among associates, they make the survey the exact same the next year and hope the score goes up. While discussing the dumb questions they ask us we constatly explain how they should have a comments section instead of answering the questions on a scale of 1 to 5 to accturately depict how employees feel and why they feel this way.  But since they don't really care, I'm going to break down some of the questions from the survey because I find them completely hilarious and pointless.  We are asked to answer these questions on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree).  Oh by the way, we are told constantly how the survey is a depiction of how the store is, not about the company.  If you read the questions you will notice how it constatly asks the company's name, nothing about the store.  Here we go!

Question 1:  I am proud to work for ___________.

Answer:  I don't know how anyone can be proud to work for this place

Question 2: I would recommend __________ as a great place to work.

Answer:  HAHAHAHAHA I recommend people I know to stay the hell away from trying to get a job here, unless you are seriously that desperate and you want to be completely miserable...

Question 3: If I had my own way, I will be working for __________ in 12 months from now.

Answer:  How is this question even on this survey?  If I had my own way, I would be on a tropical island with girls in each arm.

Question 4:  I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things.

Answer: This question is completely hilarious.  If I come up with new and better ways of doing things I am immediately shut down and told I have to do what the company has told me to do, no matter how backwards ass it is.

Question 5:  I feel comfortable speaking up when I disagree with a decision.

Answer:  This may be the only question where I feel I could agree.  Everytime corporate comes up with a new and stupid way of doing something.  I always express my views on it, not that it matters much anway.

Then the survey asks a couple things about if having charitable donations and associate volunteer program makes a positive impact on associate engagement.  Umm ok.

Finally the last question:  How would you rate _____________ to work for compared to other companies? (1 = One of the Worst; 5 = One of the Best)

Answer: Wow, just wow.  I am very surprised they asked this question.  How many people will honestly give this company a 5?  At most I would give it a 3.  AT MOST.  I forgot what I actually put on the survey but I can tell you right now it was not a 5, but you probably guessed that based on the title of my blog.

Leave some comments on how you feel about these questions.  How dumb do you think the survey is?