Well, I get up at seven, yeah
And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time
It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson
The group that I would be supervising was part of Revenue Operations, which we all called "RO". Although I had supervisory responsibilities I was not classified a supervisor or supervising agent. The biggest difference was that I did not conduct annual or quarterly performance reviews and could not initiate any disciplinary actions. But other than that (and not having to go to supervisors' meetings!) I conducted all training, oversaw workflow for the team, and kept track of the work that we were assigned. I met individually with each team member to assess their work and give them an opportunity for feedback. I occasionally told my manager that he got me cheap; he had the benefits of my decades of management experience without having to give me manager's pay!
The biggest cultural difference between Audit and RO was the Auditors and Audit Managers were trained and educated as accountants (with some lawyers thrown in) while the RO Managers were concerned primarily with getting things done in a timely and taxpayer friendly manner. I often characterized this as "Audit is trained to look under every rock, for every potential problem, while the RO way is to get shit done!". The RO culture fit more closely with my own personal views and I found out quickly that I was on the same page as the management chain of command in my new area. In the case of sales tax refund claims for incentives companies RO management was compelled to work with Incentives management and agree on standards, so there was a continual tension between the two teams regarding how things should be done. Part of the problem was that auditors were still designated as the approvers on most claims. Senior agents like myself were only authorized to review smaller claims. The result was that although I was tasked with streamlining the review process, auditors and audit mangers were dragging their feet.
One of my first assignments was to update the procedures for reviewing sales tax refund claims. The existing procedures were, in the opinion of just about anyone who had to use them, overly detailed, and confusing to use; so much as to be effectively useless. It wasn't that there was anything inaccurate in them, it's just that they were long on theory and short on practice. Newer examiners who were referred to the procedures for information came away, if possible, knowing less than when they started! While updating the procedures I realized that this was a perfect opportunity to update the training materials. I have written about the lack of training I received when I was hired, and speaking with recently hired examiners, I learned that the initial training hadn't gotten any better and in fact hadn't changed at all in seven years. Since it was in my job desciption to train new examiners I took it upon myself to revise the training materials so that a new hire had the ability to start reviewing a refund claim immediately upon finishing training. Of course there would always be more to learn, but the updated training would facilitate an examiner's ability to begin the review process.
In addition to the procedures and the training materials (in the form of a Power Point presentation) there existed a checklist which contained the major items that had to be accomplished during a refund claim review. It was very bare-bones, i.e. not very detailed. My goal was to coordinate the information in the procedures, the training materials and the checklist, so that the same information was contained in each and was detailed enough that a new person would be able to follow the steps, including locating the paths to the various programs, for a complete refund review. I had the complete support of my managers, but unfortunately, the Incentives Group thought they should be involved.
Interference started right away. My first training session with the revised materials took place about a month after I started my new position. Even though it was my responsibility to train new hires, the previous Senior Agent for our team, who had transferred back to Incentives, sat in on my training and undermined me at every turn. After initial training was complete I often found this person sitting with newer members of my team attempting to instill in them the audit way of doing things, which was usually in contravention of the RO method. Fortunately, having the full support of my manager, I was able to at least get claims for the new team members assigned to me for review, and not to this other person. This at least ensured that in the first formative months the new people would be immersed in our point of view.
The most egregious instance of interference involved the aforementioned checklist. The checklist had existed at least since I had been hired. It was a decent framework for making sure the major items in a review were completed. However, it was really short on details. I envisioned it evolving into a step-by-step set of directions on how to do every aspect of a refund claim. And it was. Those who used it, especially the linear thinkers, loved it. They didn't have to flail around or ask dozens of questions looking for the multiple Revenue programs that you had to navigate to get all your information lined up. But for some reason we had to have a meeting to discuss it. For some reason, the previous tweaks to the checklist that the previous senior agent had added didn't require any meetings, but mine did. My position was that I was in charge of training and that I should have the freedom to design how that would be done. The meeting was a disaster. We spent an inordinate amount of time examining every single line and nitpicking my wording choices and even the order where lines appeared. After an hour and a half we had covered a small fraction of the whole checklist. The way this was conducted so infuriated me that I logged out of the (online) meeting. I scheduled a follow up session with my manager where I vented my frustration with the process. We scheduled a second meeting where my manager maintained control of the process and only allowed substantive comments and steered away from the nitpicking. In the end no changes of any substance were made.
When I first began my new position it was decided that any claims that I reviewed for approval would be further reviewed by an experienced auditor or the Incentives Manager. This made sense, since even though I had been the reviewing examiner for seven years, I had never had the responsibility of approving these claims for payment. I made a few errors early on, but a lot of the feedback I was receiving involved things that I considered immaterial. In particular the manger who reviewed my reviews was not timely, and work on these claims dragged on. Claims where I was listed as the approver racked up a high number of days in the department, skewing our average negatively. I requested that either I be allowed to approve claims without my work being checked, or to remove me from the approval process completely, since these double approvals were just slowing things down. Shortly thereafter my approval reviews were no longer subject to a second review. And changes instituted by the executive office were coming.
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