I feel work are being unfair

[MumtoEri]

I work on a phone line for an important helpline. Occasionally some emergency calls (our workers work remotely and up heights and can run into danger for example) and a whole bunch of other quite serious issues come through the phone line, mostly not so important though.

The 'phone' is a system, a computer screen like any call centre I suppose.

Anyway a couple of weeks ago my phone system crashed. I was talking to a worker I know quite well and it just went. I could see the call there,(seconds ticking as if someone still on the call to me) but he had gone. All the 'buttons' were greyed out and wouldn't let me click them to end the call, log out of it, or ring anyone else or any other option.

I didn't want to leave my office to speak to management because if that call dropped and another call (a crucial one perhaps) came through, that could be detrimental. I messaged my manager on the internal system..on the camera could see her at her desk but talking, she sits within seconds walking distance but I was too worried about the system rectifying itself (maybe our worker had accidentally put me on hold and would hang up, or whatever had crashed righted itself for example!) And me leaving an unmanned line.

So I waited and tried to get her attention sent more msgs no avail.

I knew another manager was further away but nearby still so I messaged her and told her what had happened in detail. I also said it was almost my time to finish work. She told me to restart my whole system so I did.

I then messaged my manager (the first one) again and told her what I had done and who had advised me to, just in case.

Managers where I work always work an hour later than staff like me.
I shut down the system and went home.

Now,I am being subject to disciplinary. Upper management have seriously come down on me and said it will go on my record for not leaving my desk to see a manager face to face and not questioning what the manager said when she told me to restart.

This is because a lot of calls came thru to my system after I had gone home. This will look bad on our company.

I feel they're being unfair. I had valid reason to not leave my workstation. I did as I was advised by a senior. I stayed behind about 20 minutes trying to be advised because I wanted it resolved, making myself late picking my daughter up. I take work seriously. I'm upset.

Name changed regular..

This is NOT your fault. This is a systemic fault with lack of forethought and management to have a clear disaster process.

IF the message line was SO important that you should not leave it, the person architecting the business process should have planned for a scenario where something unexpected occurs and documented it. the team should regularly make sure this process is up to date and everyone knows the drill.

There are several other scenarios which may require this type of process:
Person manning the phone line has a health emergency (how do they know if someone faints?)
Electricity cuts out in the building
Internet cable cut or network infrastructure down (this has happened to me before)
1 manager on holiday, other manager ill and an emergency happens.

Mitigations are: making sure there are multiple lines of communications and an escalation order.
Multiple lines for callers to try if one is blocked - to alert someone to a problem.

The airline industry is often mentioned as one where multiple systems and processes have been implemented to reduce single points of failure and improve safety. One of the key things is not to blame 1 person or process but look at how to prepare for all eventualities.

@MumtoEri

It didn't fix the problem because calls came thru after I left. They say its my fault if resulted in this huge issue because calls came thru and nobody there to take them, for hours after id gone.. I don't know if they were still somehow coming thru while the cal id been on was showing as still connected..

Do you work on behalf of a client? As in, are the hours of work that you do billable?

Having done contact centre work myself, I know that any calls dropped or not picked up can lead to agreed 'fail' percentage being exceeded which, in turn, can lead to financial penalties being imposed, or, in extreme cases, the contract being terminated.

Which would explain the arse-covering and them coming down hard on you.

I can definitely see how serious the consequences are for the company which is why I was so reluctant to leave my desk. I feel guilty as well as so sorry to them about what happened, but I do not believe it was solely my fault.

OP, if everything is as you have presented it here, then defend your actions in the meeting and you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Hi, OP. Have you had an investigation? Always get your union involved. Never go to an investigation/disciplinary without a rep.

If you've had your investigation meeting has it been moved on to disciplinary? Will a different person be taking the disciplinary than took the investigation, preferably from a different team?

Ask around about the union reps, which is the best.

With the calls coming through for hours... that's an issue with their software. There was a problem with it which you alerted them to. The supervisor didn't see it resolved before leaving. Why is it on you and not them.

Be very careful when discussing this. You have nothing to feel guilty about so do not apologise. A union rep to accompany you is a good idea, plus send them your paragraphs about the incident from the OP as it provides an excellent summary of exactly what happened and a written account cannot be twisted like a verbal one.

YY to @rookiemeres suggestion. Bring it all in writing so that you don’t get flustered

I have to be honest, twenty mins is a long time to sit there op waiting for a response to a message. I don’t understand why it’s disciplinary but there is defintely a training need or something to address.

If something that is expected (occasional system failures) does not have a clear process detailed and it’s unclear what you should do, and the lowest level person is put through a disciplinary as a result , even when you thought on your feet for what to be done - and you are blamed for what happened after you left - then I would absolutely dispute it and also actively look for somewhere better to work.

You messaged your manager.. repeatedly .. which she ignored. You messaged another senior person, followed their instructions and advised your boss of your actions.

If you boss is conducting the investigation and refuses to see their part in the series of events, request that the investigation be carried out by someone who is independent of the people who were involved.

Everything is exactly as I detailed.

They seem so angry!Like I am an absolute disgrace.

If it was so wrong what I did, why then, when manager 1 checked her messages(at whatever time, after I'd left)didn't she think -'This won't work, I'd better check all is well on mumtoeri's system/sort it out' and look at what was going on?

I SUSPECT she thought it would be fine too, and has had a telling off about not doing anything, and managed to find a way to pin all the blame on me and that the manager who told me to restart has been told she shouldn't have?

There wasn't any investigation, I was called into the manager's office and told how I should have gone up to a manager, (among other things not too relevant) then I found a letter on my desk the following day saying that the things I did wrong were to 'not follow the specified procedure' and 'question things I'm not sure about' (can't remember exact wording but those two things as reasons (no mention of not approaching manager face to face in the letter).

In the meeting I was told it has been sent to the boss of the company in our head office. Serious stuff. (This again not mentioned in the letter). So I don't know what they're doing really.

Thanks everyone (again).

I didn't just sit doing nothing at all I did keep trying things but I know what you mean-and it wasn't 20 mins before I got the response from manager 2 it was 20 minutes from it going wrong to my leaving.

I really don't want to leave work. I've been there nearly 12 years. I love my job and the people and the hours.. my best friend works there, It's usually a nice place to work. Ugh. But yes, they're wrong here aren't they :(

I am awaiting a call back from the union.

It was a situation you'd not been trained to manage. You used your best judgement and escalated for instructions, which you followed.

There really isn't a case to answer. The issues happened after you logged off. It's above your level to check that calls weren't being sent to your phone, that's something the manager should have checked.

They want to make you the scapegoat.

I'd definitely contact your union asap. You acted in good faith, sought direction, were conscientious and hey, there's no exact rule book for every situation. You even stayed late to try to deal with things. I suspect someone is trying to cover their back. Don't face it alone, you did nothing wrong!

I feel that way Di11y but I am grateful that others agree. The union were meant to call me back today and haven't done. I'll call them I think.

Sorry if I’m reading this wrong, but it sounds like a system error caused calls to be directed to your phone after you’d logged out, which you say shouldn’t/hasn’t ever happened before. And this happened after the system had crashed and needed rebooted. So it sounds like they’re scapegoating you for their system failure (and not having a process that handles/detects this). They should be investigating their system not blaming you imo.

It didn't log me out of the phone system when i restarted and then shut down, it left me logged on so left an unmanned line. I still think management should have checked this wasn't happening.

I didn't know calls could still come through in that situation. Both managers knew i was due to leave despite having stayed behind for a while trying to sort this out, so I think they should have checked if they did know it was possible.
Also the union,I contacted them as soon as was advised to but I've got a response and they can't arrange help for me until almost ten days time :(
I'm working with the same management team tomorrow and I'm so worried I'm contemplating calling in sick. Would that look like I'm admitting fault? I feel like they all hate me and are disappointed in me. Nothing like this has happened to me before.

Did you not go and speak to your manager when you were leaving?

At that point you were already leaving your system so would have been easy to stick your head in, let her know what you had done and that the system was restarting but you had to leave, so could she shut it down once its started?

How do you normally shut down your system when leaving? If theres a step you usually do that you couldn't as it was restarting, then yes you needed to leave as your shift was finished, and cant stay later than your hours, but someone would still need to do this shut down step surely?

I didn't speak to her face to face but I did mesage her saying what I'd done and who had told me to do it. She would have been there for a reasonable amount of time (they work an hour after staff have left, but often stay a lot later than that too) so would have been able to read the message and take any action.

I shut the PC down myself after restarting-I felt this was safer somehow.

Yes, we'd usually log out of the phone system but as I said before, the button was greyed out and wouldn't allow me to press it.

I just thought shutting down the whole thing would mean calls couldn't get through. I was wrong. I think manager 2 thought this also, or they wouldn't have told me to restart-as calls could have been coming through while I did that. We get LOTS of calls. Barely a minute between them.

Sorry all-I've just realised when I name changed I did it twice (forgot it was a 'to' not a '2' in middle so may be difficult to see which replies are mine now. I've changed back to the name I used in the OP but mum2eri is me too

Would you normally shut down the system before leaving? Once it had been restarted was the log out button still greyed out?

I think that management are the ones most at fault, but i think their stance is that you didnt do things that they would have expected.

In this discussion about reprimanding etc, is the manager that told you to restart involved? If not, you should ask that she is included in any investigation into actions. Its her instructions you were following so your role in that should be covered, whether it was right or wrong.

Only possible grey area is the shutting down, as if she only asked you to restart, then they could say that wasnt following instructions. Also would the other manager know that your shift was about to end? She might argue that she wasnt aware you wouldnt be there to catch these sorts of issues.

What does your manager say as a reason to why she never replied to any of your messages? If shes not answered that you should be pushing for that investigation also.

If they want to take this further, then embrace it, but force them to investigate fully, and that all people involved are explaining their actions and not just you.

It sounds to me like there was a problem with the IT system - where stopping the application by rebooting your machine rather than shutting the application down gracefully (as we call it) didn't do whatever the action is that stops you getting calls.

This is definitely a type of mistake that programmers can make when writing the software. You should make sure that the IT department investigates this to stop it happening again.

If it happened silently with no indication to you that there was anything strange going on after you rebooted, that you're not to blame for an IT fault! If there was some indication that it was still holding the old call (eg seconds still ticking by even after you'd rebooted) then you should probably have thought to act on that as a new situation. But even that I wouldn't really think was cause for a disciplinary, since it's not something you've come across before.

Definitely get your union involved.

Just thinking actually - did you restart your machine, ie switch it off then on again - and then switch off a second time?

Or did you just shut down?

Yes, I'd normally shut it down, but after logging out. Usually restarting would shut down the 'phone system.

Yes I thought about them saying I wasn't following instructions due to that too-but then, if you restart a computer, or if you shut it down (to be restarted next time someone wants to use it) there isn't much difference is there?

The other manager knew my shift was about to end because even if she wasn't aware before, I told her in my message.

She said that she was busy so didn't see them and I should have gone and spoken to her face to face.

I've never heard of this fault before and didn't know it was possible for it to happen, or what it may cause to happen afterwards.

I have asked the union, they said they'd get back to me and didnt and when I spoke tothem again told me they couldn't speak to me about it all properly until ten days time. As above, I feel a bit sick at the thought of going in :(

The first-I restarted then shut down