Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Wireless-Phone-Carrier Management Philosophy

This is seriously a new form of management style/philosophy, that I am hereby claiming responsibility for coining/defining/describing.

This is what wireless phone carriers do... you know, Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, T-mobile...

Switch to us! We will give you this feature for free, we will give you boatloads of minutes, we will charge you nothing, etc. etc.

"Wow", you think, and make the switch... happily you enjoy your new service until you catch the new ad for your carrier
"switch to us! we'll give you SHIPloads of minutes, and a free phone every month"

So you call up customer service "excuse me, I already have this plan with boatloads, how do I take advantage of the SHIPloads... and free phone?"
"I'm sorry, that's for new customers only, not existing customers"

You have 3 options:
1. suck it up.
2. Wine, Yell, Moan, and Write a letter complaining saying that you're going to switch carriers
3. switch carriers

Here are the results:
1. nothing changes
2. "please don't leave us" and they offer you a way to take advantage of the new promotions
3. after a couple months... you switch back, and get all the new promotions.

I'm sure by now, you're wondering how this applies as a management philosophy.
Here goes:

you take a job with a company, at a good rate, with nice benefits
you happily work away doing all the things that are expected of you.

Along comes another worker, and they are offered a job doing the same thing as you...
for a higher pay rate, and with better benefits - they are the new customer !!

You have 3 options:
1. suck it up
2. write a letter to your boss, HR, and your bosses boss (you have now become a "squeaky wheel")
3. get a job somewhere else

Here are the results:
1. nothing changes
2. "please don't leave us" and they offer you a new promotion
3. after a couple months... you switch back, and get a new promotion

I hereby declare this to be "The Wireless-Phone-Carrier Management Philosophy"

Please note that the squeaky wheel and the one who switched are the two options that are rewareded, thereby perpetuating the system.

Also note that the person just doing their job, paying their phone bill and using their minutes, gets nothing.

Any questions?

5 comments:

deetour said...

I hate to say it, but that's the way it goes. It is really frustrating. I totally understand why people do some of the things they do to be labeled "disgruntled". Employers don't care about "you", they care about money.

Aaron Stiner said...

Which one of these are you in right now? 1, 2, or 3?

Defunct Lisa said...

I'm a number 1 contemplating other options - about my job, and wireless-phone carrier.

deetour said...

hope things are ok in your world.

bri said...

wait, you mean to tell me that they will pay me this little for as long as they can?!?! no way!! :oP management sucks.