Now Showing Heartland - II
"My Company Is Great; It Is My Boss That Is Nasty!"

Dear All Concerned:

Why did 70-odd employees Quit CTU01 (CBay Transcription Unit, Lavelle Road, Bangalore) between January to December 2006?! This communication pertains to:

  (a) Mr. Biju Thomas, Business Head (BH), joined CBay early 2004.
  (b) Mr. Sayed Majharuddin Shah, Night Shift in-charge and the right hand of business head!! (D1), joined CBay early 2005
  (c) Mr. Vinod Kumar, Assistant Manager - Quality and another close aide of BH...!! (D2), joined CBay a little earlier to Biju
  (d) Mr. Roobaharan, promoted from an MT to the rank of Production Supervisor, with InfoKey/CTU-01 since its inception 1990's second half. (D3)
  (e) Some Systems Admins dancing to the tune of BH/D1 and "some" lady employees...:)
[Letter D stands for deputy]

On Wednesday, April 12, 2006, when violence was about to break out in the Bangalore City due to a regional language superstar passing away and mob turning violent, Mr. Biju Thomas, who somehow got the hint of impending trouble, was first to leave the production floor, without even a word with the production staff/supporting staff or arranging safe transport for lady staff or people who commute from far away places . This behavior of a business head should alone give you an ample insight into a functioning of THE MIDDLE (read MEDDLE) MANAGEMENT of company that nurtures ambitions to add 2000 head counts and increase it up to 10,000 by 2008...Now read more.

• A typical day in CTU-01 starts with the usual downloading of audio files. The files comprise dictation from 2 different accounts (one more to come shortly) from large Universities, one having 8-hour TAT and the other 24-hour TAT.
• Now begins the fun! Once downloaded, the dictation are assigned to most favored "loyal" MTs, based on the amount of the rapport they have build over the months/years with the systems admins and D3, MT's gender (yeah, you guessed that right - younger, good-looking, talkative ladies most preferred, with the pretext being that they come from remote places - we need to talk to D3 on this and the systems admin that handles the night shift and remains on the floor until late morning for the beauties to arrive and surround him and cooing and pleading him for "allotments"), which South Indian language (out of four) they speak, etc. Utmost care is taken to sift and sort all the juiciest dictation based on their size in minutes, dictator ID, department ID, well-child/health maintenance exams (oh well, does the 1:40 plus lines ratio tickle your senses?), other template based copy-paste-edit-send types, etc. In addition to the above, on the days where there is extra load, a large portion of the largest of the above dictation (24-hour TAT) are quietly set aside for night shift, including transcribed documents for proofing - more on this later. There has been one specific instance whereby a single lady MT "won" ALL the WELL-CHILD exams for over two months and took home large sums in incentives. It now remains to be investigated who or what triggered this. A good number of these MTs are "direct" MTs - meaning their work is supposedly "client ready/no edit". Can you imagine this happening in a P-center with zero spending in continuing MT education/refresher course/any certification, not to mention the paucity of sufficient copies of AAMT Book of Style that we so often quote during our "quality" meetings...! Further, can you imagine an emergency scenario (yeah, an almost daily happening here in CTU-01) where junior MTs/QAs have to hop and switch accounts, when they have received training/orientation (handled by D2) for only either of these accounts?!
• Sowing over. Now let us start reaping! After all the wheat is taken away, the chaff - the remaining files, are left in the work pool to be picked up by the MTs who are not so privileged as their counterparts categorized above, viz., trainee MTs/OJTs, promising MTs, average MTs, MTs who are about to resign and are on notice period (no need to explanation why...) etc. The result - an average MT/QA working on these dictation spends no less than 10 hours plus on the floor to complete 60 minutes and 150 minutes respectively daily!! So these MTs turn into gladiators,  pitted against tough dictations (fast dictation, ESL dictation, poor audio quality, no dictation files, etc.), while the QAs turn into hostages, being on the floor for no less than 10 hours, battling with poorly done jobs. Add to this the fact that some of the MTs/QAs commute no less than 3 hours one way to the office. While their privileged counterparts walk away managing with barely 10 jobs to do 60 minutes or do overtime/more lines and earning more incentives, these hapless MTs/QAs often end up doing over double the number of jobs to achieve the same goal in their respective levels, yet struggling to achieve their monthly quota and thus being precluded from incentives! Does this throw some light on why CTU-01 lags behind on quality/TAT? To add to it, daily targets are in terms of hours while the monthly targets are in terms of lines (stiff 60 minutes a day for MTs and 150 minutes for QAs or 12,000 plus transcribed lines and 24,000 to 40,000 proofed lines a month respectively). This means MTs/QAs cannot go home until they have completed their minutes, no matter what number of lines they have achieved, failing which they have been threatened with LOPs'/loss of incentives/warning letters. The issue of quality is raised ONLY during discussions related to client feedback; on the floor, it is quota regime and only that.  Because the MTs and QAs are torn between 2 different accounts having different TATs, the fate of quality/TAT is anybody's guess, given the efficient "system" CTU-01 currently follows.
• Now let us look at a typical scene from the drama happening in the night shift, where (ALL) the guys are the MOST PRIVILEGED of all!! Thanks to the blessings of BH/D1.  As usual, the dictation are downloaded, sifted and sorted, and assigned - not based on their TAT, but based on the criteria described earlier, in addition to being colored by some religious biasing and 2 close relatives of D1. All this sifting and sorting happens directly under the control of D1 and right under the nose of BH who brought/referred D1 and D2 and the Senior HR Manager plus some other HR guys to this unit...!! But here is a slight twist to the whole process. This time, there are no beauties and only guys. Here, MTs who barely know the ABC of transcription are taking hefty sums in incentives! How? This is how it works: They have some sort of an "unwritten protocol" that work done by night shift MTs will be graded in night shift only by night shift QAs under the disguise of "clearing" near-TAT files. Now see the fun: All the transcripts are under-graded by these QAs (marked less errors than actual), so as to show them above a certain accuracy level, thus hoodwinking the workflow software (also introduced by BH and a deputy programmer that BH brought with him) thereby virtually making over 80% MTs/QAs romp home with hefty sums in overtime/incentives, with barely one-third the number of jobs that their daytime counterparts manage - considered on PER HEAD basis! D1 alone is known to handle a superhuman 10 hours per night by way of "auditing and blank clearing". The files that go to audit pool are of a much better quality than QA1 pool and are sent by "direct MTs". Then there is this "Blank" pool that contains Blank Edit files, a real cash cow for D1. With some strange mechanism, D1's team MTs/QAs leave deliberate blanks in an otherwise No Edit file and send it to the Blank Pool where D1 then "clears out" the blanks. No sooner he enters the office after the day shift people have left, he starts filtering the files as described earlier and NOT TAT-wise, as it actually should be or is described to people. He then feeds these dictation to his loyalists and a couple of cousins that he brought with him. The files being of relatively good quality, are sent to Audit Pool, whereby ONLY D1 wields the powers to clear them, as much as he can, in addition to clearing "Blank" files...The remaining files are left in the pool and transcribed in the manner and by the type of people described earlier...So have we come a full circle on a typical day in CTU-01? Does this explain the minus 6 plus figure TAT and client ready quality of the remaining smaller files which are, of course, more in number and perennially keep being pushed over to the next day?
• Now is anyone complaining? Why not - these issues have been raised on innumerable occasions during client feedback sessions and other "quality" meetings and face-to-face meetings with BH/D2. The response and action has been less than lackadaisical, with often rude and arrogant remarks like "It looks like only you have this problem, others are not complaining, (Biju)" or an indifferent one like "We are aware of this problem and are looking into it, (Biju)," "Do you think I have taken a contract to mend everyone's quality here? (Vinod)" - a typical response of D2 to MTs' poor quality complaint by a QA, or another one by D2 "In a growing unit like ours, QAs will get all levels of qualities, you have got to adjust to this...(Vinod)" Those who complain often about this genuine problem are asked to leave and made to write apology letters saying they would not spread rumors or negativism in workplace and not discuss with others but only with management. Additionally, they are pitted against worst dictation and QAs made to battle against the most shoddily done jobs, thus breaking their morale and wanting them to leave the company...!!
• MT/QA Awards - This has been the real heartburn for MTs/QAs who are not so privileged to always do juiciest dictation. The names of the "best and top" performers are often announced on the notice boards and also in the pop-up messages. MTs/QAs who do not complete their targets are taunted and reprimanded by comparing their performances against the superhuman heroes...!!
• Biju first started the system of working on Sundays during August/September 2004 whereby MTs and QAs are being arm-twisted into working on Sundays too, whereby they have to face LOP and thus loss of incentives or warning letters if they failed to show up, while he himself enjoys full holiday. Prior to this system, the production staff used to work only on alternate Mondays, thus having off days on Sundays and other alternate Mondays.

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