This article, in the March 2009 edition of Oracle, describes a day in the life of an HMRC Contact Centre operative:
Contact Centre
Truly a miserable working environment!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Its clearly all lies. Everyone knows civil servants are lazy, overpaid, underworked and have massive gold plated pensions.They are not "understaffed by about 40%" they are massively overstaffed. Just ask Stop Hitting me Officer and most of the contibutors to this blog.
ReplyDeleteThis is DEFINITELY NOT a lie. Gold plated pensions?
ReplyDeleteFUCK OFF!
Late last year, when the minimum wage was increased, a handful of goverment departments had to give their lowest paid workers (ie: Admin Assistant grade people like myself) an emergency pay rise to comply with the law.
Just remember; there are two sides to every story.
This story is very TRUE sadly the contact centres are a nightmare and staff morale is at an all time low.The workload is so high mistakes are getting made as people try to keep their wrap times down.It seems to be quantity of calls taken not quality within HMRC.
ReplyDeleteAnother sign of desperation here at HMRC is that overtime is being offered.
ReplyDeleteGiven the fact that the UK (and the global) economy has gone down the bog, people are being tempted with the extra wonga.
My simple advise is this:
DO NOT DO OVERTIME!
This is allowing HMRC to mask it's already profound deficiencies and sweep them under the carpet.
I have FLATLY refused to work overtime, and urge all other workers withing HMRC to turn it down.
Do not let HMRC get away with it - just show them for what a fuck up they have made to this department.
I just got out of Customs and Excise-Inland Revenue after a number of years. It went from bad to worse. I never even worked in a contact centre. An outside body should be brought in to scrutinise management behaviour in that department. The tax payer was rarely on the map. It was an aggresive dour management/no investment department.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 09 March 2009 11:19... your comments may very well apply to the senior ranks, but certainly NOT at the coalface worker grades!!!
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned somehwere before, the HMRC contact centre in East Kilbride has CCTV inside the bogs to check on its staff.
ReplyDeleteI think that just about says it all about HMRC's attitude towards it's workers....
LOL. I'm the anonymous who posted the 1st message. I know exactly how bad it is. I made that comment with tongue firmly in cheek knowing that was the kind of nonsense normally spouted here and just about everywhere else in the media. Like the rest of you I'm tired of hearing how cushy our jobs are from tax dodging freeloaders who have no idea what its like.
ReplyDeleteThere is huge variation in public sector. The missus was a teacher and her pension did not seem enormous considering she paid 6% rising to 9% for so many years.
ReplyDeleteGood teachers and many other conscientious sorts in the ordinary ranks doing necessary jobs probably are not overpaid. The real problem is the perks and conditions available for the useless, the difficulty in removing poor performers, the way some milk the sick system, and for that we have to blame the public sector unions.
Quite agree with popular sentiment on too many white collar civil service and LA jobs. You look at the departments and titles and have to ask what the hell do they do? I don't think The Daily Mail can be making it ALL up.
PS Sure that thing about the bogs in East Kilbride has to be a myth, I think it would be illegal.
PPS Any pictures going?
Anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"LOL. I'm the anonymous who posted the 1st message. I know exactly how bad it is. I made that comment with tongue firmly in cheek knowing that was the kind of nonsense normally spouted here and just about everywhere else in the media. Like the rest of you I'm tired of hearing how cushy our jobs are from tax dodging freeloaders who have no idea what its like."
Are you sure Stop Hitting me Officer (et al) is (are) a tax dodging freeloader? Have you looked him or her (them) up on HMRC systems? Is it official?
The problem is and always has been one of terminology.
ReplyDeleteUse the term "civil servant" and everyone thinks Whitehall mandarin.
The Civil Service of the Whitehall mandarin is not and never has been in (almost) any way, shape or form (other than barking edicts, pronouncements and orders) connected with the people "at the coal face", the benighted trolls who work in dark, dank call-centres for dark, dank, management.
We don't have jobs in the "Civil Service" any more, it's debatable whether we ever did. We work in Government Call-Centres and might just as well be working for A.N.Other Bastard PLC.
The Grunt-level pay and pension never was gold-plated, it wasn't even tiles in porcelain - and it's far less so now.
BAN THE TERM "CIVIL SERVICE" unless you're talking about something with its lips permanently stuck on the hairy backside of a politician!
Its true about the bogs in East Kilbride......the managers also have walkie talkies in case god forbid you're off the phone for more than 2 seconds.
ReplyDeleteThe report is exactly how it is... its a hellhole, you get treat tlike a piece of shit by the managers and the public.
One of the reasons why I left was the calibre of the work and staff. I kind of agree with xoggoth about the useless ones. I worked with a person who was bone lazy-(20 mins to put their luch in the fridge).But the mangement were shit scared of this indivdual becuase of a race issue. They got the same appraisal box marking as me and my colleagues. Effective staff became disillusioned and left leaving a section of numpties.
ReplyDeleteAnd here in Debt Management & Banking (DMB - formerly known as the Collectors Of Taxes), they are making a handful of DMB offices into workhouses - err sorry 'contact centres'.
ReplyDeleteThis includes the DMB office in Manchester (others include Glasgow and Southampton), and quite understandably, people there are somewhat real pissed.
All part of this so-called 'adding value' bollocks that is happening in DMB.
Whilst staying within DMB, we now have this latest pile of shite called 'power hour', where everyone has do one hour of work withour moving from your desk or talking to other people.
Just another way of getting staff morale even lower than it is now, if that is actually possible.
It's true about the bogs in East Kilbride. And I got pulled up coz I was 2 minutes late getting back from the bog. But what can you do when you've got constipation? I wonder if I would have got a bonus if I'd had the runs and got back pronto!!
ReplyDeleteIt's also true about the back office in EK - where one plonker of a manager tried hiding a digicam in an "innocent-looking" box-file pointing straight at the bogs. Readers may recall the story got some coverage in the PCS Magazine a few months back.
ReplyDeleteManagers with walkie-talkies on bog patrol... for fark sake... next thing they'll be issued with jackboots and thumbscrews!!!
ReplyDeleteWhile we are on the subject of HMRC bog etiquette, in the office I worked in we were told that in an effort to keep costs down we must use a maximum of just two sheets of loo roll at a time.
ReplyDeleteYou read all this then you look at the massive salaries of Hartnett, Lamey and co. Then look at all the lunches Hartnett has at the expense of corporate tax avoiders. The department is a joke.
ReplyDelete'You read all this then you look at the massive salaries of Hartnett, Lamey and co. Then look at all the lunches Hartnett has at the expense of corporate tax avoiders. The department is a joke.'
ReplyDelete12 March 2009 14:13
While the rest of us here at HMRC face conduct and discipline procedures for as much as accepting a thank you from a taxpayer (for genuinely helping someone) by being given a jar of Quality Strett for example.
But then again, ain't life a fucker?
Just makes me glad that here in HMRC I don't work in one of their battery hen factories.
ReplyDeleteIf I was told my line of work was going and I would now being working in one of their call centres, I would now face either going there or flip burgers at McDonalds for absolute jackshit (although not a great deal less than now).
Guess what I would choose?....
just like to say that working in an HMRC contact centre was the worst job I have ever had and working in Mcdonalds would be a great improvement.
ReplyDelete