My recent post linking to an article about a woman who had tried and tried without success to get through to Social Security by telephone brought this response from a field office manager:
Hi Charles, your message on phones and the individual who called the field really resonated with me as a manager of medium size social security office.
I have been able to confirm that this report is accurate and that the problem is national.Effective two weeks ago, the SSA administration made the decision to shift call forwarding away from field offices. What does this mean? Essentially the option to go to the 800# number is removed.We were told that this was done due to an average call time of 35 min at the 800#. Essentially the 800 was not making their PSI (public service indicator).The result? The result is catastrophic in some office. We've seen our call volume essentially double. To give you an idea - some regions in the nation are getting to 50% of their calls. For an office like mine, it essentially means losing 2 bodies to the phones. I'm not complaining but it does seem very short sighted to make this change....when this will single handedly delay things in day to day operations - i.e. appeals, overpayment process , etc.As you know we struggle to keep up with these alone - this additional change - seems entirely misguided. They have simply shifted calls to meet a goal - truly a mess. Sorry to remain anonymous but i worry about the repercussion of sharing this informationSincerely - DM who is worried.
Spin it:
ReplyDeleteA: "The public wants to speak with a person in their office and feedback we received indicated a lack of satisfaction with being transferred to our #800 line when calls were not answered timely. This is the cost of giving the customer what they want. It is unfortunate that this change to suit the public's desires did not turn out the way they want."
B: "We forgot the program centers existed and have understaffed them for almost a decade. In order to meet certain audit and workload goals, we had to make tough decisions and minimize the number of program center staff who would provide service on the national #800. In order to cover for this, mandatory overtime has been ordered for all staff, but pay will be deferred into the future to avoid the appearance of federal employees being overpaid. To refocus their efforts, we now split hearings into two workloads. Paying appeals and paying attorneys. We stop tracking them once the award letter is sent so that we can save time by pushing off the attorney fee until later."
C: "Drat! If it weren't for you darned kids we never would have been caught. You discovered our secret plan to slowly degrade our service at the local level so that we would have a reason to close more under performing offices."
Been months since I've gotten a fee paid. Only get a few standard fees here and there each month, but plenty of award letter copies. B could be possible, but C just seems more realistic with what's happening in D.C.
Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Everyone agrees the agency doesnt have the best leadership at times. Dont confuse being incompetent with conspiracy. It is becoming laughable here, like a yahoo comment section, Deep State, Antifa, SSA against the world. Next thing it will be the reptile aliens running the agency.
ReplyDeleteTry this on for size. Decisions are being made quickly to try and fix problems by people that have never once done the work that they are asking others to do. By not including the people who do the work, poor decisions are made and the problems get worse. Bad managers do this all the time from fast food stores to mom and pop shops. You think the agency is beyond this?
I forgot, easier to blame Bigfoot.