Thing is, in her department she was the only employee that took difficult cases and found the solution, and left the easy ones to her coworkers, her boss didn't want to fire her, but had to because the metrics said she had to go because a low total amount of cases...
Last she talked with her former coworkers, now they are struggling because the hard cases keep piling up endlessy and nobody knows how to do many of them, because they fired her without warning so she couldn't even teach others how to do what she did.
EDIT: oh yeah, remembered that IBM wasn't subtle about how much they needed her either, since she was the only one that could do what she did, when she worked at IBM I had lovely christmas and new year parties with her laptop on the table, because IBM back then threatened to fire her on the spot if she didn't work remotely on some important clients during those times, then her actual firing came some a short time later anyway during a seasonal lull of work.
My first job was in tech support and we had similar metrics although nothing as drastic. I took really hard escalations and had a low case count. My manager pointed it out and so next period I also did 100 remote password changes in addition to my hard cases and had like 3x the next closest case count.
I did this to show him how stupid his metrics are but he just said “great job, this is amazing.”
So I just made sure to min max stupid metrics and do what I thought was right as it was easier than trying to fix the metrics.
I definitely don’t think it’s worth being fired out of principle if I know I’m measured for case count.
Generally, I try to set up policies where these metrics are not allowed for performance, but are visible.
And then whenever someone tries to enact them I try to say “this is a really stupid idea and here’s why” in front of as many senior, fancy pants people as possible.
This is why metrics should all be taken with a grain of salt and be subject to the opinion of ones manager. Nepotism at level certainly exists, but a good manager will always come to bat for you. Even if it sticks their neck out. That is why upper level bourgeoisie management that has no f'ing clue about the bottom rungs shouldnt touch what their not ready to unravel.
So frustrating to read that. Could no one even look at 'type' of cases? Tickets in a ticketing system typically have some sort of severity level associated. Taking 3 'critical' issues should be treated as at least important as taking 30 'low priority' issues.
She was fired for low performance...
Thing is, in her department she was the only employee that took difficult cases and found the solution, and left the easy ones to her coworkers, her boss didn't want to fire her, but had to because the metrics said she had to go because a low total amount of cases...
Last she talked with her former coworkers, now they are struggling because the hard cases keep piling up endlessy and nobody knows how to do many of them, because they fired her without warning so she couldn't even teach others how to do what she did.
EDIT: oh yeah, remembered that IBM wasn't subtle about how much they needed her either, since she was the only one that could do what she did, when she worked at IBM I had lovely christmas and new year parties with her laptop on the table, because IBM back then threatened to fire her on the spot if she didn't work remotely on some important clients during those times, then her actual firing came some a short time later anyway during a seasonal lull of work.