[JPLeRouzic]

A long time ago I was tasked to trace technicians' work, especially those who where called during the night because of some urgency on French telecom networks.

Astonishingly before that time, it was not known who worked, how many times and what was the outcome of the intervention.

It turns out that only 5 people were working on the 15 in the team.

I remember a union member pleading with me with tears in his eyes to recruit more people because there was too much work. Indeed he was one of the five people who worked hard.

Curiously those five never complained about the others' behavior, on the contrary, the team reacted strongly against attempts at putting some light on what was going on.

[acdha]

> Curiously those five never complained about the others' behavior, on the contrary, the team reacted strongly against attempts at putting some light on what was going on.

What was their manager doing? They must have had some way they measured work, were the other people faking reports or something, or was it more that their definitions of work varied?

[JPLeRouzic]

> What was their manager doing?

They did nothing, essentially they don't care of customers, they only care for two things: 1. Having good relations with the technicians. 2. Having good relations with their managers.

> They must have had some way they measured work

They didn't care, a task that would require 1 hour could last one month, sometimes more.

> were the other people faking reports or something

There were no reports at all, hence why I was tasked to trace the technician activities with computers.

> was it more that their definitions of work varied?

I guess everybody knew what was going on, the upper hierarchy was happy that a relative outsider like me was involved. There was also a curious discrimination between technicians, some of them (the well-paid) worked little, and others who had a harder task were paid less.

All the technologies involved were shrouded in mysteries. Many people in management had the impression that the job required a high level of qualification (it did not) and that qualified people were rare.