Patience

Something that I seem to lack a great deal of the time.

Call to my mobile (via the hot line) comes in 12:30 PM my time, 19:30 Central European Time. The caller (an employee of our company) informs me there is a case that needs my attention. I get the case number and look it up and see that it is a local issue, not global. I inform the caller (like I did our customer a week ago) that local/regional issues outside of my region are not my responsibility. He. like the caller last week asks about the "follow the sun" concept. Again I state that follow the sun is for GLOBAL issues. Local/regional issues are handled by the local/regional mgr. The caller states "there is no local/regional mgr for that region".

Me - "Well someone must be filling in for them", I said, "Have you called $Danish mgr?"
Europe - "No."
Me - "Call him."
Europe - "What if he does not answer?"
Me - "Then, call me back."

To be fair, the job that is my "primary" one does not keep me busy eight hours a day, but that is why they give me several smaller, less important things to do on top of it. Also, the esc mgmt in Europe is going through a tough time right now. They are short one manager, another is new and does not like the role, and the main guy is on vacation, with the new guy backing him up. I was not asked to fill in for anyone, so I am not.

I have many problems with what is going on:

1) When an issue needs escalating, the process should start BEFORE the end of the business day while people are in the office. This case was opened at 9:30 AM CET ( 2:30 AM CDT). It was not escalated after 6 hours like it should have been (per the process), instead it was 9 hours after it was opened, already missing the first objective. It was a high priority case and the two teams that had been working on it took turns bouncing it back and forth. The Inc Mgmt did a poor job (in my opinion) of tracking it and now they want me to get involved? No.

2) "Follow the Sun" is for global issues and this was a local/regional issue. I should not have been called at all. I get called outside of business hours for issues in my region, so why shouldn't the other regional mgrs get called on issues after hours on theirs? They do...normally, but since there is a bit of confusion right now in Europe and they want to please the customer, they tend to make frantic calls.

3) The issue really is not too critical after business hours. It is a work flow system that up until 6 months ago was not in place. It is a convenience that is depended upon and now they view it as "critical".

4) Europe has enough people that they can hand off to each other. The America's has...me. I have no one to hand off to (although that may change) and I do not need more heartache...especially if the team in Europe cannot manage the case...it is not like they were massively busy today. The threat board had 4 hi priority cases to track all day long and 2 of those were WAN issues. I have no pity for the team not being able to keep up with 2 hi priority cases. I realize that I am biased on this. The team in the US (they work down the hall from me) have 8 years experience with this and are darn good. They can keep track of issues and make sure updates get sent out. To date, I have not had to escalate an issue they have managed.

I realize that I am venting/complaining but I really am tired of being treated like a door mat. I have been shoved into positions every time something needs done and to be honest it is getting old.

On a side note, three guys from our building are accepting early retirement. My old TL, the TL of the Windows/Extranet group, and a finance person. All three are feeling stressed and are looking to get into something that will not produce "Maalox Moments" 14 hours a day. One of the three told me that he tendered his resignation a few days ago (before he was accepted) and his boss refused it. The worm has turned.