Categories: life-in-general
Date: 28 May 2009 10:25:39
Part of my job (and a large boring part at the moment) involves keeping up a database of service providers up to date. This is something run by our Federal Government and provides a lot of information (potentially!) for people in our part of Tasmania (and the whole of Australia, variously). Anyhoo, all the information has to be reviewed every 12 months, so it’s an ongoing process of printing reports and sending out letters, and then chasing those up (‘cause at least 50% of people do not fill in forms and return them even when a stamped envelope is provided).
There is a process to go through and at the end of it the record shows when the information was last verified with the name of the person who did it. … Occasionally a random record will pop up from the ether which is very old and has to be completely changed and then it’s all up to date and fine. I am coming across now a lot of records which have been checked by other people over the time I have been here (it’s been a gradual handing over of all responsibility for this to me) and I, of course, have assumed that they’ve been doing their jobs properly. Until today. When I have come across 3 records so far where the informants have told me variously that they have not been at addresses for (in one case) four years …. That that phone number hasn’t been operational for at least 18 months … and that the person on the listing hasn’t been in that job for nearly 2 years.
All I can assume is that the record has been opened, marked verified, and closed, with no actual legwork being done. Which cheeses me off massively ‘cause I’m doing it properly, or as properly as I can, and it’s taking me forever (and is OUTRAGEOUSLY boring!) … and I’d just like to run down the hallway and KICK one of the people who I know is responsible except that I know she’d lie about it. What makes it worse is that this particular person spends a large proportion of her work life moaning about how busy she is …..
If you’re going to do a job do it properly or pass it on to someone who will … and don’t pretend you’ve done it properly if you haven’t.
That’s all I have to say.