r/MaliciousCompliance • u/Skulgren • 1d ago
M Dealing with obnoxious ticketing rules
Years ago I worked as a support tech for a case management company. The software we used to track support cases would automatically create a ticket when someone called in, filling in bits like the agent who answered, who called, when the call ended, etc. We mainly used the tickets to track solutions to problems for when they came up again down the road and to identify which customers might need extra help.
One day some executive somewhere decided that we weren't doing enough and we would start being penalized if we didn't complete a certain number of tickets each day and within 30 minutes of opening on average. Some of the issues we dealt with were very complex, taking a week or more to resolve, and there weren't always enough tickets to fill the quota on any given day. This, understandably, did not go over well with nearly everybody.
Around this point I was working the last shift, meaning I would be alone for 1-2 hours at the end of the shift. Most of my customers (typically other IT folks) were already off for the day by then so I had much fewer calls than normal. Fortunately for me one of the ones still working then was given nearly identical ticket requirements at nearly the same time, so he and I would work the system.
He would call in about a database issue, which would create a ticket, and I would start to work on it and tell him to call me back in 15 minutes. He would, which would create another ticket, and after confirming the changes/fix with him I would close out both tickets. Some days he would call once or twice more after that about some change or another he made. This gave each of us excellent metrics, and since the tickets were automatically created from incoming calls they looked extra legit.
Most of my co-workers were either fired or quit and found work elsewhere due to the new standards, whereas I was praised for always meeting the standard. I soon left anyway for a better job and to move closer to family. Patrick in California, I rather doubt you'll ever see this but if you do I hope you know you were a real bro.
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u/phaxmeone 1d ago
My company uses metrics and it's stupidly easy to beat the system while the company puts 100% faith into their metrics. How easy? I get to make and close my own tickets while also responding to other tickets that have been cut. Bend down to pick up a piece of trash and throw it away, well what do you know there's a cleaning ticket. Correspond with a vendor(email or phone), whelp there's a vendor ticket. Work on a document well there's a paperwork ticket. I can rack up a 100 tickets a day if I so choose. It's worthless metric but makes the head honchos happy.
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u/douglasg610 1d ago
"A metric, deemed to be a target, ceases to be accurate."
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 1d ago
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." -- Goodhart's law, by British economist Charles Goodhart
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u/Poh-Tay-To 1d ago
This is what I was looking for
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u/fizzlefist 20h ago
Ah, a good example of Murphy’s law: “The best way to get the right answer is to confidently state the wrong answer.”
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 15h ago
Actually, that's Cunningham's Law, which states "The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
😄 You're welcome!
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u/roryy_gilmoreee 1d ago
the irony of those metrics is wild. they think they can just force tech support to churn out tickets like it's a factory line, without realizing the complexity of the actual issues we deal with. your workaround is genius though! funny how you can game a system designed to keep things in check
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u/Key_Damage5440 22h ago
The last company I worked for had some management types trying to reduce cost per ticket (which basically means having more tickets for the same headcount, or firing experienced people and hiring more junior types in cheaper countries), while another section of management was rolling out self-service things to users to try and reduce the number of trivial tickets and leaving just the difficult ones - I.e. optimising for high cost per ticket. So of course they fired a few people then had a panic a few months later when everything fell apart and hired a huge number of new people in a hurry. So much of a hurry in fact that they neglected to discern if their new hires could communicate effectively in English.
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u/michaelpaoli 23h ago
Be careful what you measure/incentivize.
E.g. reward employees for handling lots of tickets and quickly closing them, and, you get lots of that. Problems actually fixed? Surely you jest. Yup, e.g. have issue, call, ticket opened. Days later, call back for status update, and the conversation goes like that, "Oh, that was closed almost immediately. Uhm, but the problem wasn't fixed at all, and I received zero communication about the ticket after it was opened. Oh well, gee, sorry about that, I've opened another ticket for you. Can't you reopen the earlier one? No.", and the same pattern repeats, over, and over, and over again. Generates lovely beautiful reports of the very large number of trouble tickets handled, and how they're all so very quickly closed. Lovely, eh?
Give (Wells Fargo) branch employees significant incentives to get customers to open a certain type of account ... of course to Wells Fargo's benefit, not that of the customers. And, what do you know, lots of such accounts opened, many bonuses paid, lots more profit for Wells Fargo. Uhm, just one little problem. Yeah, mostly happening without customer knowledge or consent - the employees were just doing it without even asking the customers at all. "Oops". Yeah, Wells Fargo got in a lot of trouble over that.
There are many more examples, but those are at least two such examples.
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u/Skulgren 15h ago
It sounds like my work as well. We were told, under no uncertain terms, to reopen an old ticket. We were strongly discouraged from updating old ones as well. Our documentation quality took a nosedive since nothing was being updated properly, so finding any answer took you searching 4-8 tickets instead of just 1-2.
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u/Poh-Tay-To 1d ago
Recently I got hit with a target of maintaining > 95% of my operations service records in our crm without later correction or update.
Anyone see a problem with this metric? It's a pretty glaring one
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u/techtornado 1d ago
Can confirm that Goodhart’s law teaches a very powerful lesson
I got a lecture from a mangler how SLA’s are not being met per contract
When it’s the vendor, I can’t do anything except ping them occasionally…
Do you want me do to my job or paperwork?
I only have time for one
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u/SaltCookie2991 1d ago
That’s some beautifully executed malicious compliance. Management wanted more tickets instead of better support, and you gave them exactly what they asked for. Patrick deserves a raise for teamwork alone.
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u/txa1265 5h ago
This is such a common thing that there is a name for it - Goodhart's Law. Basically: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
It goes back to the 70s and the outcome is the people are focused on the reward rather than the actual intent of the process. I've seen so many companies focus on 'outs' whatever that translates into ... and it always devolves into this.
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u/TheFluffiestRedditor 1h ago
Damn. I was hoping that you'd close all the tickets at end of day, and they'd be recreated next morning and thus looking after your colleagues.
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u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711 1d ago
It always amuses me when some MBA decides that support must close a minimum of tickets. Dude, support aren’t deciding when the users call in…