Octocrook
02-27-2004, 03:06 AM
On the 3rd day of me having the flu but going to work anyways, the 3rd day in a row we've had at least 2 people out in our 6-person department (and today it was 3 people), and I was having probably the best and luckiest day of placing I have ever had since being there, probably placing upwards of 60 orders, I made a colossal error on the last order I made. I was totally beat, physically and mentally, and in a major brainfart, I called the borrower's number when I was meaning to call an appraiser. It wasn't as bad as I first thought, as I realize the most important thing: I didn't say any number directly about the appraiser's fees. Still, it feels really bad. The gist of my message: "Hi, this is Steve calling from Nations, I have an order here for a 1004 Full in Mechanicsburg, PA, and the thing about this order is that is has an estimated value of $1.4 million, so I'm sure that will affect whether you can do the appraisal and raise your fee, so if you could please call and let me know what your fee will be and whether you can get it done by March 4th..." etc., leaving my callback number and extension too. I DID leave a followup message telling the person to disregard my message as I dialed the wrong number (and did not in any way let it on that I made a big mistake), but still...I just feel like I erased everything good that I've been doing and I'm back at square 1.
Meanwhile, one of my coworkers (who thankfully wasn't in today) has either secretly or non-secretly not been following protocol. We're supposed to contact the borrower on EVERY order except Exterior only appraisals, letting them know of their assigned appraiser and the appraiser's phone number. She does that on maybe 10-20% of the orders that require it. I mean she's right next to me, so I can't help but notice how few times she calls people up, appraisers and borrowers alike, while I wind up calling at least 60 times a day. She's not a fast worker or anything, definitely not faster than me or the guy who's been there longest who was leading in orders nearly every day, and yet all of a sudden her daily order count swings up about 20 per day...whatever.
The thing is though that she's friends with the supervisor (who also sits next to her, who should be noticing what I'm noticing), so as far as I know, my supervisor could be well aware of this and could maybe even be telling her privately to skip it so she can do more orders. I mean this is already on top of another bakc-handed practice I've noticed her doing: cherry-picking the easy orders, even sometimes starting on orders, then PUTTING THEM BACK in the stack when she figures out it will be a hard order. I couldn't be silent about that one...I told Dave about it, the placer that's been there the longest, because he came across one of them and wondered why it had been started on. I mean I just look very down upon that kind of practice, and I can guarantee you she's only doing that and the not calling borrowers so that her order numbers will be higher because she was the lowest nearly every day. She processed 59 orders yesterday, probably about 50 of which required calls to the borrower, and I heard MAYBE 6 calls to the borrower while I was there (she starts a couple of hours before I come in). Meanwhile, my day was with only 38 orders processed, because I had about 34 calls to the borrowers I had to make, and I made every single one of them, sometimes more than 1 if the first contact number was disconnected or whatever.
Shit, I wouldn't really mind, but the fact is that protocol makes the difference between me doing 30 orders a day or 100 orders a day, and the amount of orders we process each day is the main thing they look at. If I wasn't calling borrowers, I'd be processing 70+ orders a day. Calling the borrower is the most time-consuming part of the process, especially when they have incorrect number, or like in the freakish case I had today, they had a hearing impaired telephone number that was beeping awkwardly when I called it rather than a live person talking. All I can hope for is some of it coming back to her, like a borrower's number being incorrect when she said she gave the borrower the appraiser's contact info. Even then though, since she's good friends with the supervisor, that won't matter anyways.
Meanwhile, it almost seems like my supervisor doesn't even take note of how I've been bending over backwards to do errorless work and yet process enough orders to be doing more than my part, not to mention the things I do that are beyond my job, the times I work during my lunch break, this last week of working while sick, and the overtime I've put in, etc etc...I still feel like the new guy instead of part of the team. At the very least, I believe I'm making a good impression on HER boss and the VPs...in the end that's probably what will matter most. I just gotta stop worrying about this shit and simply do my job.
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Meanwhile, one of my coworkers (who thankfully wasn't in today) has either secretly or non-secretly not been following protocol. We're supposed to contact the borrower on EVERY order except Exterior only appraisals, letting them know of their assigned appraiser and the appraiser's phone number. She does that on maybe 10-20% of the orders that require it. I mean she's right next to me, so I can't help but notice how few times she calls people up, appraisers and borrowers alike, while I wind up calling at least 60 times a day. She's not a fast worker or anything, definitely not faster than me or the guy who's been there longest who was leading in orders nearly every day, and yet all of a sudden her daily order count swings up about 20 per day...whatever.
The thing is though that she's friends with the supervisor (who also sits next to her, who should be noticing what I'm noticing), so as far as I know, my supervisor could be well aware of this and could maybe even be telling her privately to skip it so she can do more orders. I mean this is already on top of another bakc-handed practice I've noticed her doing: cherry-picking the easy orders, even sometimes starting on orders, then PUTTING THEM BACK in the stack when she figures out it will be a hard order. I couldn't be silent about that one...I told Dave about it, the placer that's been there the longest, because he came across one of them and wondered why it had been started on. I mean I just look very down upon that kind of practice, and I can guarantee you she's only doing that and the not calling borrowers so that her order numbers will be higher because she was the lowest nearly every day. She processed 59 orders yesterday, probably about 50 of which required calls to the borrower, and I heard MAYBE 6 calls to the borrower while I was there (she starts a couple of hours before I come in). Meanwhile, my day was with only 38 orders processed, because I had about 34 calls to the borrowers I had to make, and I made every single one of them, sometimes more than 1 if the first contact number was disconnected or whatever.
Shit, I wouldn't really mind, but the fact is that protocol makes the difference between me doing 30 orders a day or 100 orders a day, and the amount of orders we process each day is the main thing they look at. If I wasn't calling borrowers, I'd be processing 70+ orders a day. Calling the borrower is the most time-consuming part of the process, especially when they have incorrect number, or like in the freakish case I had today, they had a hearing impaired telephone number that was beeping awkwardly when I called it rather than a live person talking. All I can hope for is some of it coming back to her, like a borrower's number being incorrect when she said she gave the borrower the appraiser's contact info. Even then though, since she's good friends with the supervisor, that won't matter anyways.
Meanwhile, it almost seems like my supervisor doesn't even take note of how I've been bending over backwards to do errorless work and yet process enough orders to be doing more than my part, not to mention the things I do that are beyond my job, the times I work during my lunch break, this last week of working while sick, and the overtime I've put in, etc etc...I still feel like the new guy instead of part of the team. At the very least, I believe I'm making a good impression on HER boss and the VPs...in the end that's probably what will matter most. I just gotta stop worrying about this shit and simply do my job.
<P ID="signature"><img src=http://www.crooky.us/csig.jpg>
<a href=http://www.crooky.us/mp3.htm>Download "End of the World" here</a>
<center><a href=http://www.crooky.us>Crooky.us</a></center></P>