[BartSimpson]

At the end of July a former co-worker of mine, Dan Carpenter, walked off his job of 15 years at Franklin Templeton and went home and took his life. According to another of my friends at FT Dan was fed up with the ongoing torture that is daily worklife at FT and some recent BS pushed him over the edge. I'm truly sorry the man didn't pull it together because he was very talented as an IT professional and he really could've been a success somewhere else.

So what exemplifies the ongoing torture of worklife at Franklin Templeton?

In their call centers, including the IT department up until recently, if more than four calls were waiting to be answered then ear-splitting, high pitched alarms would start screeching. One of the people who worked there, briefly, measured the volume of these alarms at 120Db.

The performance policy of the technical call center was in metrics. One of the metrics was to measure how many calls were resolved by the tech on first contact, meaning without transferring the call.

But then the other policy of the department was that when the call alarms went off you HAD to transfer calls out of the department if the call was to take longer than four minutes. And then THAT was held against you when you had a review. So you got punished for doing what you were told to do.

Then there was the brilliant policy that said when wages were frozen (after the 2008 market crash) that emplyee reviews had to be 'adjusted' so no one qualified for a raise. Consequently, people who had done outstanding work were sleighted in their reviews so the company didn't have to pay raises. Some of these people were then subject to layoff becuase of the poor reviews they received.

I could go on. But the point is that a sick and uncaring corporation, IMHO, contributed to the death of a man who was on the edge.

[Gunnair]

BartSimpson wrote:

At the end of July a former co-worker of mine, Dan Carpenter, walked off his job of 15 years at Franklin Templeton and went home and took his life. According to another of my friends at FT Dan was fed up with the ongoing torture that is daily worklife at FT and some recent BS pushed him over the edge. I'm truly sorry the man didn't pull it together because he was very talented as an IT professional and he really could've been a success somewhere else.

So what exemplifies the ongoing torture of worklife at Franklin Templeton?

In their call centers, including the IT department up until recently, if more than four calls were waiting to be answered then ear-splitting, high pitched alarms would start screeching. One of the people who worked there, briefly, measured the volume of these alarms at 120Db.

The performance policy of the technical call center was in metrics. One of the metrics was to measure how many calls were resolved by the tech on first contact, meaning without transferring the call.

But then the other policy of the department was that when the call alarms went off you HAD to transfer calls out of the department if the call was to take longer than four minutes. And then THAT was held against you when you had a review. So you got punished for doing what you were told to do.

Then there was the brilliant policy that said when wages were frozen (after the 2008 market crash) that emplyee reviews had to be 'adjusted' so no one qualified for a raise. Consequently, people who had done outstanding work were sleighted in their reviews so the company didn't have to pay raises. Some of these people were then subject to layoff becuase of the poor reviews they received.

I could go on. But the point is that a sick and uncaring corporation, IMHO, contributed to the death of a man who was on the edge.

The call centre sounds a lot like one my mother worked at and quit. Jackasses and a draconian work policy.

Condolences for the loss.

[raydan]

Big business... chews you up and spits you out.

Rip Dan Carpenter.

[DrCaleb]

Condolences Bart. From the sounds of it, FT is a place no one should work.

The first time a siren like that went off, I'd grab my coat and walk out. No one could work in such an environment and still be a 'professional'. That it claims lives is proof.

[BartSimpson]

Thanks, gents.

[PostFactum]

Our condolences,That's sad

[Regina]

My condolences Bart.

[Yogi]

My condolences Bart.

'A permanent solution to a temporary problem'.

To paraphrase you, 'If he had of quit and gone to work elsewhere'. Unless we have 'been there' I don't suppose we could ever really understand such a tortured mind.