Man Fired For His Online Customer Service Game

First time accepted submitter DiscountBorg(TM) writes "An employee of the Canada Revenue Agency lost his job after releasing a humorous game in which the player answers customer service calls for the Agency, usually leading to his termination. In an email National Revenue Minister Gail Shea said: 'The Minister considers this type of conduct offensive and completely unacceptable. The Minister has asked the Commissioner (of Revenue, Andrew Treusch) to investigate and take any and all necessary corrective action. The Minister has asked the CRA to investigate urgently to ensure no confidential taxpayer information was compromised.'"

Comments

Butthurt

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't have our employees making light of our oppressive workplace policies, they might actually improve morale!

Re:Butthurt

[GiantMolecularCloud]

"You think this is a GAME!?!"

Re:Butthurt

[Jetra]

"The truth?...You can't handle the TRUTH!"

Re:Butthurt

[sunderland56]

Best thing about writing a customer-service simulator: if your code freezes, people don't care, they think it's part of the simulation.

Re:Butthurt

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't have our employees making light of our oppressive workplace policies, they might actually improve morale!

The beatings will continue until the moral improves.

Re:Butthurt

[AtomicTomatoOfDoom]

In all honesty, though, their workplace policies aren't all that bad. I've worked as an IT analyst for the CRA for a few years. I regularly had to interact with employees that manned the phones and made friends out of a few of them, all of whom eventually quit. Essentially, the workplace environment isn't all that bad (I'd even go as far as to say that it's relatively nice). However, those who quit explained to me that they felt like they were slowly dying from the inside. See, their job is to call people owing the government money and essentially threatening them of legal action until they would pay up. Calling that one guy who owns a yacht and hasn't paid his taxes in 4 years feels okay, satisfying even. It's when they have to call a grandmother living alone in a small apartment, who breaks down in tears when they tell her the amount she owes that their job gets rather excruciating.

Re:Butthurt

[rishistar]

Does he have a PHB? http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-03-29/

Re:Butthurt

[mabhatter654]

I suppose your son could be a utility lineman... And your daughter a prison guard.

Correction please.

[will_die]

As of the stories the guy had not been fired or another done to him. The guy is playing up that he could be fired and is using that as a reason people should purchase the game.

Re:Correction please.

[Sockatume]

"Man not fired from job he doesn't like, for making game about how much he hates his job, to fund aspirations of leaving job" doesn't exactly invoke outrage.

Re:Correction please.

[benjymous]

From his twitter, he said he was fired after that article was posted (which is why it doesn't mention it explicitly) but isn't able to talk more. Do you have information showing that this was false and he's still in the job (or quit rather than being fired?)

Re:Correction please.

[ice_nine6]

Seems he has actually been fired: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/30/game-developer-draws-ire.html

Re:Correction please.

[mdm42]

From his twitter, he said he was fired ... but isn't able to talk more.

140 characters. Didn't stand a chance.

Re:Correction please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he isn't allowed to talk more because he has a decent lawyer who told him to STFU and not say anything to diminish his payoff for illegal termination.

Re:Correction please.

[Big Hairy Ian]

Game over Dude!!

American sweatshop

[alphatel]

You have to smile while you're on the phone (uhm really?), follow the cubicle dress code (but I just answer the phone), not allowed to hang up on abusive customers no matter what they do. The week's vacation you earned and got approved 3 months in advance was just re-allocated as forced time off due to the business being slow. World's worst health insurance if you get any at all.

Fluorescent lighting from hell, vending machines for lunch, 19" square monitors from the 1980's, computers running Windows XP, no service pack.

We live this job every day.

Re:American sweatshop

[Smauler]

And then complain when it's outsourced for someone else to cope with.

One point to note is that _we_ are the abusive customers. I personally always try to be nice (I'm not talking "have a nice day" nice, I mean sincerely - I don't have to do it all day, every day), especially to people I call up for a service (even if they do have to try and sell me the little add on warranty whatever it is at the end).

Re:American sweatshop

[acidfast7]

Not me! I left the US behind almost 6 years ago. In the meantime, I've had a full year of paid holiday (6 years x 35 days/year holiday + 10 days/year of federal days off.)

My gross salary is even higher, but the net salary lower with the 50% deductions.

No desire to go back. The lack of unlocked phones and reasonable prepaid plans it just one recent example of you guys taking it in pooper.

Re:American sweatshop

[Grimbleton]

You got Windows XP? I had a fucking amber text WYSE TERMINAL in 2007. That they're probably still using.

Re:American sweatshop

[prefec2]

I would recommend two things in this situation:
a) Found a union, based on continental European approaches. The UK and US approaches are not that good.
b) If a) does not work, because your colleagues and fellow US citizen like to be mistreated, leave the country. In Europe we have standard health care above the MediCare stuff you have. You get 4 weeks holiday a year, protection from too many over hours, payed sick leave (in Germany) etc. according to apologists of neo-liberalism that will cause high unemployment rates. However, we do not have such thing in Germany.

On a side note: You really should get organized in the US. The information we get from the US looks more and more like stories normally associated with developing countries not a first world country.

Re:American sweatshop

[DaMattster]

America has always been about sweatshop workplaces. We need more unions, not less but styled after a European one. Heaven forfend should we offer an real perks to our employees. Why, perish the thought, we might be seen as socialists! Hopefully you've concluded that my statement is dripping with sarcasm. No wonder America ranks lower than its industrial counterparts in lifespan, health, and education.

Re:American sweatshop

[ArsonSmith]

" The information we get from the US"

and is mostly false. It's mostly good here except for the noisy people with political agendas to push.

Re:American sweatshop

[prefec2]

I never heard of any factory worker, who works for 1€ per hour. This 1€ program is for people who are unemployed for a long time, who require help to get back in normal jobs. Therefore the state provides them with a basic income, called ALG II. which is considered the existential minimum (I personally think it should be higher, but that is not the point here. They get money to live and the state pays their rent and health insurance, definitely more than the average unemployed person in the US has). On top of that income they can earn extra money in such so call 1€ jobs. By law these job grants are not allowed to be used by employers to replace staff on normal income.

I personally think, that the German system is too harsh, but compared to the US, it is still better.

Re:American sweatshop

[Greyfox]

And as a phone monkey you can't actually solve real problems. Solving problems will drive your call stats down too much, and low call stats will lead to your termination. The best possible outcome for you is that for whatever reason the customer should give up almost immediately and go away. Perhaps because they can sense the ineptitude oozing down the line at them. Those guys aren't rated on customer satisfaction or problems successfully resolved, They're rated on how many people they can convince to go away in an hour. If you hear that hopeful spark when that phone monkey asks you if you tried rebooting it (You will, if you listen for it,) that's why. If you do get someone who knows what he's doing, I guarantee you that person will not be there long. That sort of person doesn't last long in phone support.

Re:American sweatshop

[realityimpaired]

Don't have to go that far... Canada has on average one statutory holiday (federally mandated day off) per month, and many employers give people fresh off the street at least 2 weeks' paid vacation, with the trend being towards more vacation: many larger companies will give you 3 or even 4 weeks at the start, and will give you the option to buy an extra week as part of your benefits package. Some provinces have provincial statutory holidays in addition to the federal ones. They're slowly coming to the realization that a well rested and happy worker is more productive, and allowing this much vacation actually costs less than not allowing it.

35 days is a bit much for most companies yet, but I've been able to book 5 full weeks of vacation this year (1 week of carryover from last year), and because I picked weeks where the statutory holidays come, I've managed to parlay that into an extra week of vacation in the form of days-in-lieu for statutory holidays. That's 30 working days of vacation, or 42 calendar days this year, and I still have 2 floater days and 2 personal emergency days, in addition to paid sick leave.

And most of Europe has even more vacation as standard than we do.

Re:American sweatshop

[acidfast7]

Spend a day homeless in Europe and get back to us. In addition, in the US, employment = insurance (recent changes, not withstanding.)

Re:American sweatshop

[suutar]

I think I disagree. We don't especially like to do hard work, but we do like to accomplish significant tasks, which generally involve hard work. (If it wasn't hard it wouldn't be significant :) Hard work for its own sake sucks.

Re:American sweatshop

[tlhIngan]

Don't have to go that far... Canada has on average one statutory holiday (federally mandated day off) per month, and many employers give people fresh off the street at least 2 weeks' paid vacation, with the trend being towards more vacation: many larger companies will give you 3 or even 4 weeks at the start, and will give you the option to buy an extra week as part of your benefits package. Some provinces have provincial statutory holidays in addition to the federal ones. They're slowly coming to the realization that a well rested and happy worker is more productive, and allowing this much vacation actually costs less than not allowing it.

Actually, ... no.

The federal Employment Standards Act (which applies to around 4% of employees - it's for federally regulated businesses and government) has around 10 days stat.

Provinces (which cover most employers within the province) average anywhere from 9-12 days stat.

Like In BC, we used to have 9 stat holidays - New Years Day, Easter Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, BC Day (aka Civic Holiday), Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Christmas. This year the government tossed in one to break up the long stretch between New Years and Easter called Family Day, making the total stats to 10.

The Federal^WHarper Government (yes, Harper changed the name of the federal government to the Harper Government) adds Easter Monday and Boxing Day to the mix. Ironically, the feds don't honor Family Day in any province, so federal employees have to work it as a regular day. Many companies can choose to recognize Boxing Day as well, voluntarily (since the provincial or federal acts (whichever one applies - it's either-or) only give a minimum).

Also in the BC act, employers MUST give an employee 2 weeks paid holiday every year minimum. Many employers though can choose to give extra - 3 or 4 weeks, and many also give sick/personal leave days (act says you don't HAVE to)).

The federal employees one leads to an interesting consequence - because all federal services have to be open on family day, if you're employed directly by the government, no problem. If you're not (i.e., subcontracted), you actually are mandated by law to open, and you have to pay your employees for the stat holiday (either overtime or in lieu), like say a post office in a store.

Re:American sweatshop

[DragonWriter]

I say this as a citizen of the USA: we like to complain, sure, but we also like to do hard work.

Well, long work at least. Maybe hard (though that's less evident), and definitely not efficient. Which is why for a long time the US, while its had the highest per-employed-worker productivity in the developed world, has also been near the bottom in per-worker-hour productivity.

So fucking-A right we complain when the JOBS WE GO TO WORK AND DO EVERY DAY DESPITE HATING THEM GET OUTSOURCED.

I'm confused, are you claiming that US workers "like to do hard work" (your first sentence) or view jobs which involve hard work as something they "go to work and do every day despite hating them" (your last sentence). Because those claims are directly opposed to each other.

Re:American sweatshop

[Anonymous Coward]

His point would be that you're mind numbingly ignorant of how absolutely awesome it is to be even homeless in the US.

Spend a day in a country that actually sucks ass, then speak.

Go spend a day in Somalia, Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of Africa, large sections of rural Asia.

You have absolutely no clue what 'bad' is.

And you have absolutely no idea how 'good' good is, particularly in Europe (despite the economic downturn and rediculous armageddon-peddling of the US media vis-a-vis Greece and the other PIIGS).

I've lived abroad for many years, and am back in the US. In both instances, opportunities took me abroad and brought me back (and may take me abroad again, who knows)? The US has its good qualities, but it does suck ass in a whole lot of ways that other countries, particularly in Western and Northern Europe, do not. Gun nuttery and associated criminal mayhem (~50,000 murders/year vs less than a few hundred in a similarly populated country?), universal healthcare that is comprable and often better in quality than what you get in the states with a cadillac health plan here, better consumer and citizen rights across the board, a lack of political insanity in one of the several governing parties, and the list goes on (though on the last point, YMMV by country).

Oh, and faster internet (by far), better and cheaper unlocked cell phone plans, are just another bonus lost in the white noise of not living in a place where the government is so overtly of, by, and for the corporations.

So yeah, there are worse places (Somalia, Libya, etc.), but the false dichotomy you hide behind doesn't change the fact that in many, many respects the US is a third world country that sucks-ass in many ways, particularly when compared to Wester Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and a whole host of other developed nations.

Re:American sweatshop

[cayenne8]

Oh, and faster internet (by far)

What good is that internet, if it is being blocked and censored by the govt.? Didn't I read here recently about Australia and/or UK forcing ISPs to censor from there with blacklists, etc...that are not made public?

Re:American sweatshop

[geminidomino]

"Visit The US! Now With 30% More 'Not as bad as Somalia!"

I really, really hope you get fired from your job at the Board of Tourism...

Re:American sweatshop

[EdZ]

Yes, the US is a bastion of never ever seizing domains (from domain holders outside the US even) for frivolous reasons and with no evidence.

Re:American sweatshop

[LordLucless]

That's your selling point? "Come to the US, it's better than Somalia, Lybia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, most of Africa and large sections of rural Asia!"

Um, yay?

We're with the government...

[VendettaMF]

We're with the government. We don't have a sense of humor.

Did he do it at work or at home?

[Viol8]

If he did it at home then firing him is a flagrant abuse of the departments power. If he did it at work then its a flagrant abuse of his position and he deserved to be fired. Anyone know which?

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[ciderbrew]

Years ago when I had a phone job - I got pulled in to the office for drawing at my desk. I said everyone here doodles. Apparently there is a skill level limit to the doodle. Bored managers amusing themselves by being awful never helps a bad job.
Good job this guy didn't work there http://www.biro-art.com/

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[Phrogman]

I did a few years of tech support for a Real Estate software company. They claimed they had 700,000 US Real Estate agents as customers.
* The software was written in Visual Basic 5, and used an Access Database.
* We suggested that customers limit their list of potential customers to 20,000 so that the database would not have issues as often (it was Access based so it was guaranteed to have at least some issues some of the time). One of the people I talked to wanted to load 1 million names into his database, and tried to do so before calling. He had no forethought to back things up first. It did not go well.
* Real Estate agents as a whole do not understand computers, and seem generally to have little patience for any problem - whether or not they caused it. The conversations got rather heated - a lot. I remember one guy who worked in Beverly Hills, screaming at the top of his lungs that he was losing 100k a hour while he was on the phone with us. My coworker in the cubicle took the call but I could hear it clear as day over top of the call I was taking at the time.
* We had over 60 tech support people crammed into their cubicles. I must say the quality of the Staff and the Tech Support leaders was actually quite high.
* We had a script we were required to follow and which was almost never relevant. This was a major problem since usually we could identify the problem quite quickly, but had to trudge through the routine first until that failed to solve the problem and we could carry on with actually solving the problem.
* A lot of the problem was of course the Sales staff who would lie through their teeth to get a Sale, knowing that Tech Support or Development would have to solve the problem, not them. In general, I hate Sales people as a result of those at this company.
* Our in house tools were written by the company too, and since what they knew was Visual Basic, thats what they wrote them in. Since the database they knew was Access, thats what we used. Every day at noon, for 1 hour, we had to revert to pen and paper because the Access Database for *our* customer base had to be repaired. Then we would madly enter call details in, in between other calls until we got caught up.

It was an "educational" experience, but not one I care to repeat if I can avoid it :P

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[Charliemopps]

I was in a similar situation. Then I noticed there were women that would knit while on the phone and they didn't seem to have a problem with that. So, always up for a challenge, I learned to knit. I made a 22foot, stitch for stitch replica of the original Dr Who Scarf.

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[drinkypoo]

A lot of the problem was of course the Sales staff who would lie through their teeth to get a Sale, knowing that Tech Support or Development would have to solve the problem, not them. In general, I hate Sales people as a result of those at this company.

Don't feel bad, like you're biased or something. In general, the sales "people" at any company behave precisely the same way. Whether you're talking about a delivery tracking software company with a dozen employees or IBM itself, this is how the sales department always behaves. No one should ever talk to the salesmen, because they will sell features that don't exist that they thought they heard someone say was in the product but might only be theoretically possible, or indeed, theoretically impossible. Treat the salesmen the same way you treat HR, like lepers who might get some on you.

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[Yebyen]

At our phone job, we actually encourage the call-center employees to doodle, because it's a) not on your screen, where the work/customer record is supposed to be (at all times excepting breaks), which makes it much better than either youtube or reading the news and b) it's something that's easy to stop if the customer picks up the phone, since it's an outcall position with no auto-dialers, a lot of time is spent repeating three dead simple steps of clicking onto the next record, pressing the dial button, until you have someone on the phone and just waiting for an opportunity to read the script and introduce one's self, only to be told that you've woken up the wrong person and you should call back/never call again.

(I feel sorry describing it that way, pretty sure it's not as bad as it sounds, but I don't run the phones so I honestly can't say how much it sucks.)

I have seen the more impressive doodles going onto the refrigerator and whiteboard, we keep plenty of whiteboard magnets mostly for this purpose.

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[sandytaru]

Back when I was a phone grunt, I first started out by doing homework. Then they said no, no home work allowed. No reading any more either. So I switched to doodling. I, too, got hit with the "skill limit" warning because my doodles were too good. Then they forbade drawing entirely for anyone. I switched to origami for a long time - just something to keep my hands busy - and when they told me to stop with the origami, I finally quit. I have no regrets.

These days, many call centers are actually distributed, so unless your supervisor is monitoring you with a web cam, they really can't tell what you're doing in your home office. I think that might finally be the end of that particularly vile variation of micro-management.

Re:Did he do it at work or at home?

[HornWumpus]

There is no single original Dr Who Scarf.

They used a different one for each episode. They are coveted collectors items for Dr Who fans.

Fake up a certificate and sell yours. Dr Who fans are morons. Remember to claim a particular episode on the certificate.

Real problem with phone jobs

[prefec2]

There are a lot of people out there calling help or support lines. Some of them are frustrated, some of them are angry, depressed or helpless. Depending on their mood and way dealing with it, they use the support stuff as a verbal punching ball. However, for some problems there is a solution.

a) A person calls and does not have ready all the stuff required to have a successful help line talk. For example, the do not have their customer number or other details available. And they start searching for them while on line.
Solutions:
A) Tell the person on the other end which information they have to collect, and that they can call back when the have it. These request should include all required and optional information you want to have as a help line person. Then wish him or her goodbye.

In cases where people are waiting for hours to get through, this is often not an option. Also some company policies could require you to keep the line open. In that case use B

B) Tell the person on the other end which information they have to collect, and that you are waiting for her/him until she/he can bring all the information. To survive this situation you have to switch from a goal centric state of mind, to a service state of mind. Even if you are doing nothing beside breathing and other vegetative stuff, you are there for the caller, your pure presence is the job. This might look like nothing, but it means a lot mentally for the caller, which has now someone who is there for him or her. For Europeans and people with a similar cultural determination have often a problem with that. That's why (beside the money) India is so popular for helplines. For help on that issue ask someone who meditates or a Buddhist.

In cases where the person is angry or otherwise aggressive, it helps to think that it is not you the person is angry with. It is like parenting. If you little baby cries, it is not angry with you it is just angry. It is not personal. Therefore, do not act like you are the source of the anger. You just have to comfort the baby. For older children, the approach is a little different. However, do not try to persuade it, as it is not open to any reasonable argument. Working at a help line is very similar. And you should act similar to that. Also you might have a supervision talk with your colleagues on a regular basis. If your company is great, they pay for it. If not, do yourself a favor and organize something privately.

Re:Real problem with phone jobs

[TheSpoom]

A is impossible because the caller can't direct dial an agent. I have never seen an IVR that allowed direct dialing through to a call center unless it was a special line to get a third level agent, and that line isn't given out publicly.

B is nearly always impossible, because the major metric the call center is judging you on is your Average Handle Time, or AHT, which mean how quickly you get the caller off the phone without hanging up on them.

The reason call center work is the most frustrating is because as the agent, your employer's profit depends on pushing you to your breaking point.

Re:What's wrong with 19" square monitors!

[amiga3D]

I hate those friggin widescreen monitors as well. They're only good for watching video. For actually doing work and reading I have to continuously scroll every few lines.

Re:What's wrong with 19" square monitors!

[deroby]

That's not quite true.

My wide-screen allows me to have 2 pages next to each other which can be utmost convenient at times. Off course you need to have decent resolution for that, but I have my current wide-screen 1920x1080 over your 1280x960 any time. Sadly there's a lot of 1366x768 screens out there which is like going back to the middle ages.

I'll admit that I hate everything has shifted from 16:10 to 16:9 though, 1920x1200 was bliss.

He got one thing right

[Megane]

usually leading to his termination

Yep, just like what happened to him in real life.

Re:What's wrong with 19" square monitors!

[mjr167]

Try two 22 inch wide screens with one oriented vertically. You never have to scroll again :P

Re:Over Reaction from the Goverment !

[radiumsoup]

I always thought the French had the fashion industry to themselves, not the Canadians. Learn something new every day on /.

Re:What's wrong with 19" square monitors!

[tippe]

Maybe you should change careers and get into ASIC or FPGA design/verification. Widescreen monitors are great for viewing waveforms. The wider the better as far as I'm concerned...

Re:I wonder why this game is not free

[Prokur]

nevertheless, game is available for free here

Re:What's wrong with 19" square monitors!

[BitZtream]

WTF? How does having more space on the side mean you have to scroll more?

Are you trading vertical space for horizontal space? If so thats pretty much your fault.

You don't buy a monitor thats 17" tall square and then get a 15" wide screen and pretend you got the same thing. Well, okay, an intelligent person wouldn't. You seem to be doing just that.

Excruciating

[phorm]

Or when they ruin somebody's life because he wouldn't pay a crooked taxman's bribes, conveniently losing all his documentation, and then refuse to pay back damages.

Effem if they can't take a joke

[yesurbius4822]

I worked at a notorious Canadian call center in 2004 providing Comcast internet support. It was part of the call center culture to share the annoying and stupid calls with our coworkers. I don't think for a minute that the same culture doesn't exist inside the CRA call center. Lets face it - some of the people that we are forced to deal with in customer service positions are .. well, stupid. Some of the other calls are downright hillarious - like the one-armed man that kept dropping his phone while his windows 98 ocean theme kept making toilet-like bubbling noises in the background. You can't make this shit up.