Should I be graded for doing a job that isn't mine?

Page 1 of 1 [ 4 posts ] 

ThisAdamGuy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 May 2015
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 692
Location: Northwest Arkansas

10 Feb 2017, 9:39 am

I work at the Walmart home office's call center. Technically, I'm a store support agent. I'm supposed to take calls from the store associates and help them with various parts of the online ordering process. However, for the past few months I've been doing a customer relations agent's job. I'll spend weeks at a time not taking a single SS call, just customer call after customer call. And yet, I'm still labeled as a SS agent because so long as I'm just "filling in" for a lack of people they'll never fill, they won't have to raise my pay to CR agent level.

Now, my question here is: if I'm still officially a SS agent, and being paid as a SS agent, is it fair for them to grade me on a CR basis? Every call we take is recorded, and we have people whose entire job is to listen to these calls and grade us on them. Were we polite? Did we offer all the help we could? Was the customer satisfied at the end of the call? And let me tell you, these people are merciless! It doesn't matter if the customer was demanding something completely outrageous, if they're not satisfied at the end of the call, we're graded badly for it.

And, strangely, the required grade for CR is even higher than it is for SS. SS only has to score 90%, while CR has to get at least 95%. To my knowledge, not a single CR agent has ever been able to obtain that score because the vast majority of CR calls are things we don't have the ability to fix, or go against Walmart policy, or are just plain stupid, so there's no way in heaven or hell we'll be able to give them a "good customer experience." I'm lucky if my score gets up to 85%! They keep telling me if I don't raise my score, they'll have to take disciplinary measures. I never had problems getting over 90% in SS, it only went down once they threw me into CR.

So, is this fair? I feel like if I'm going to be doing another department's job, and be graded by that department's standards, then I should be paid at that department's level. If they're not going to do that, they should still grade me by SS standards, since I'm still officially a SS agent. Am I wrong in this? What do you think?


_________________
Autistic author of fantasy novels. Read them for free HERE!


BTDT
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,120

10 Feb 2017, 10:03 am

This is the sort of stuff that women routinely had to put up with.

There was an episode of Mary Tyler Moore in which her co-workers agreed she was doing a much better job than the guy she replaced, but he got paid $50 more per week! And then she got a promotion and raise. 1000 bucks a year. She was not pleased when she did the math.



ThisAdamGuy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 May 2015
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 692
Location: Northwest Arkansas

10 Feb 2017, 10:17 am

... dude, I'm talking about me and my job here. Why are you trying to turn this into a women's rights issue?


_________________
Autistic author of fantasy novels. Read them for free HERE!


BTDT
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,120

10 Feb 2017, 10:26 am

In some places this sort of employer behavior is still tolerated. Some people will make excuses on behalf of the employer. I brought up this particular example because it is easy to verify.

Here is an article in Forbes on what to do about unfair job conditions.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/ ... 0ae2c66030

http://www.dailydot.com/via/walmart-lab ... d-company/
Is Walmart fair to its employees? You already know the answer, but this is for the benefit of those of us who don't work there.

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/ ... s-str.aspx
A comparison of Walmart, Target, and Costco at an investing site.
A common argument is that if you don't like it, you should get a job at another company.