Great Expectations

It is not too early to insist on deeply sustainable principles in all decisions and policies. In fact, some think it is too late.

How? Examples where day to day decisions are made which have DIRECT impact on our greenhouse gas emissions, on our "independence" from our civilization's addiction to oil or on our spending now to reduce our spending next year & beyond as fuels and food prices rise:
- city autos and truck fleets;
- influence on SEPTA funding and ops;
- decisions on DVRPC project funding;
- public health vs. coal-fired power plant air-and-water pollution;
- teaching and helping our population to eat more locally fresh and more healthful foods, etc.

I look forward to the practical expectations of sustainable PERFORMANCE from our city agencies and policy-setters.

Basics -- let's stick to the basic, defined mission of each agency, and be strict about it. Often those missions are so broadly defined anyway.

Of course, think outside the box, but right now, you can try to get a permit by going to L&I's basement customer service area in the MSB, and if you are not in line by 7am, you better have some snacks or lunch handy, because you will stand in line until after 12 noon for your permit, no matter how simple the matter.

Basics of Customer Service #1: Have enough employees who can serve the people in line.

Designate special lines for complex cases (high rise permits or expedited requests) and regular permit requests.

Basics. The Deed Record Office closes its customer service section at 2pm. They will not see anyone after that. Not even banks do that anymore.

Basics of Customer Service #2: Have regular business hours for customer service in every agency.

I've seen people who've driven from VA, or other far away locales who show up at 2pm for a copy of a deed, and have to either go back or get a hotel and try again tomorrow. Even the smallest little town in the burbs has regular business hours for customers.

Hallwatch.org has a more WYSIWYG, intuitive, and responsive format for BRT, Dept. of Revenue, and Deed Record data online. The city has to keep up with the available technology. It's easier than ever to convert the old computer file to a desktop standard database or spreadsheet. Ed Goppelt gets a TAPE from the city once a month that contains the data he uses. He had to sue the city to get it.

Basics of Customer Service #3: Match or outdo your competition in customer service. Upgrade and convert the data using simple formats. No need for all this "custom" database business. Standard desktop packages work fine, and have plenty of security provisions that can be purchased.

And finally, who hasn't run into the nepotism hire, whose got the connections to get a city job as an employer of last resort? Don't let other "goals interfere with customer service, such as a badly run affirmative action policy (most are badly run in the city, with willy-nilly, knee jerk hiring) or the call from Council to hire the son of the contributor. This whole Philly idea that city government is a "job creation" mechanism has bloated the ranks and muddied real job descriptions.

Basics of Customer Service #4: Hire only the most qualified people for the job. NO excuses.

Finally, stick to the organization mandate. One day at the BRT, I was trying to find out if and when the agency planned to send a property that owed tens of thousands in back property taxes and water/gas debt for collection to the Real Estate Tax Unit. The employee there at the front desk seemed to think that she was "helping" the owner of the property by harassing me for trying to "get rid" of an owner "who might just be having trouble paying her bills right now."

I was like, uh, well, maybe yes or maybe no. We don't even know the owner's story UNLESS you do your job and certify this property for Sheriff Sale. Schools need this money right now, not when you assume this lady is able to get her finances together. Turns out the owner was deceased.

Basics of Customer Service #4: Know your job and the purpose of your agency. Don't undermine your own agency's mission.

Don't subvert property tax collection if your job is part of the one of the steps of property tax collection. Schools need that money, and so does the city.

Basics of Customer Service #5: Sometimes ya gotta fire people.

Sometimes, there will be promising people who for whatever reason, simply will not accept their job descriptions but have to deal with the public. One example I saw was a woman eating breakfast at her desk in the MSB, a huge breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and letting customers wait and watch while she did this. If you gave her a hard time, she wouldn't see you or would be nasty when she did see you. Naturally, she was about 400 pounds of bad attitude.

Come on folks, you gotta fire some people. They don't get working in an office. Let them work in the private market where they'll be introduced to such skills as answering the phone, taking a message, eating before you come to work, and using common sense.

If the city is afraid of union backlash, then the city has to get comfortable with outsourcing the municipal functions of many of its agencies. There are many good companies that do the municipal services for counties and cities, and they have the ability to do things like enforce customer service expectations. If this upsets the office worker union, well, they just have to allow their ranks to be disciplined fairly. The city can't be so hamstrung from hiring any longer.

Last fun anecdote: I get a several messages from a local city health clinic to call the clinic. Thing is, it's for another person. They don't listen to my message that clearly says my first name in it, and keep leaving message after message to call them. I call the clinic and request the name of the person using the number they left on my machine. The front desk has no idea who this person is. I tell the front desk the above, and let them know that it sounds like it's urgent, maybe a response for lab results, or some finding, and want them to let the person who left the messages that they keep calling the wrong number.

The response of the front desk? Silence. I wait. More silence. About 20 seconds ticks by. I hear office noise in the background, so I know the front desk hasn't hung up. Finally, "Well, I don't know what to tell you."

Are you serious? I say, "then put me in charge of the person who might know what to tell me."

Front desk response: "I don't know who that might be."

Me: "You don't know who might be the person who knows the staffer tasked from your office with calling clients?"

Front desk response: "No."

Me: "Well, why don't you give me your best guess."

I get voice mailed all over, leave tons of messages. Next day. Get a message on my machine. Same lady, same name no one at the front desk knows, same number.

I call the health center back. I tell them the same story, ask for a supervisor.

Front desk response: "I don't know which supervisor I can give you."

Me: "Give me anyone so long as it's not voicemail."

Front desk: "I don't know who's going to not have you go to voicemail."

Me: "OK. But I just can't help you, you have to help me. This sounds like it could be serious for this patient of yours, because you guys keep calling me. This is the third time I've gotten a message from this person who works there who you say you don't know, which I find really impossible to believe. I know you must know of this person, or someone who does, so give me that person."

Front desk: "I don't know what to tell you."

Me: "You guys keep calling me; it sounds urgent, give me your direct supervisor right now."

I get a different voice mail, and leave another message. No more calls from this health agency leaving messages for this patient at my number anymore.

It only took 3 days, and a lead paint victim at the front desk.

Rule #6: Have a super agency you can go to yourself to register complaints like this about customer service, preferably a website just like this one, where you can put in all the who, what, where, when, why and expect to have an employee in the Dept make inquiries and have complaints registered in the employee's file or permanent record.

The abysmal standards of the city in hiring get a quick response by departments -- that's all we can afford, that's who we have to work with. But that's not at all true. Your department can do training. Your department can do office skills. Your department can have expectations that are made known and clear to everyone. Or seriously, let them go.

People who work for the city should be able to read at a high school level so they can find names on a list of employees. I thought the civil service exam was supposed to establish basic competency.

Rule #7: Hire ONLY people who can read at a high school level (not a Philly high school level, a high school level), who can write comprehensible messages, who can do simple math, who already have the technology basics.

Illiteracy in city hiring is a crime. It's a crime against everyone who has to try to pretend along with the rest of the department that this person can function. The city can't be the second grade school attempt because the union won't let you fire someone.

The city is not the employer of last resort for people who are not and will not ever be white collar employees.

Rule #8: Put customer service first, and not "rescue hiring." Weed out the dead wood.

It's not rocket science. But the whole culture of city hiring and retention expectations will have to change.

The city treats a high school diploma from the School District of Phila. like it is a meaningful document.

Sorry, but no other employer does that. They don't assume the person is functionally literate just because they have a Philly public high school diploma.

The school district graduates people who are not functionally literate, period. Yet all customer service jobs require people in them who are able to read and write on a college 1 level. By college 1, I don't mean remedial high school course work, either.

The city has to start hiring for customer service positions using an essay in response to a customer service problem, or the like. That's what banks and other customer service heavy industries in Philly do.

With respect to the first poster, the greenhouse gas emissions have nothing to do with competent customer service. Find another hook or risk demeaning your worthy goals.

The city needs to abolish residency requirements of any kind. If people want to commute into the city, let them. They'll end up moving here if they like their job, because the commute is wretched during rush hour.

I don't get this liberal-as-Stalin policy. Live here to apply for city job or you can't apply? Whuh?

Is your goal hiring the best or hiring only pals of your party? The residency requirement to apply is just a disguised form of old machine party politics.

WHO PAYS FOR ALL THIS CUSTOMER SERVICE?

People cost money.

More people for faster service COST MONEY.

More TAXES = More SERVICE.

Amen to abolishing all residency requirements. I'm glad Council finally approved Councilman Kenney's bill to no longer require people to live in the city for a year before being hired but, ideally, there should be no rules at all about where you live. No business that cares about being run efficiently and finding top talent to work for it would make a silly rule like that. I also don't like the "tie breaker" rule Councilman Goode had to introduce in order to get enough support to pass Councilman Kenney's bill.

In addition to the residency requirement, hiring and promotions shouldn't be governed by union rules. City Council already botched that when they made the non-civil service deputy bill that voters approved on the 22nd into a laughable parody of its original form.

To the person who said better customer service would automatically mean higher taxes, get a brain. The city is run inefficiently, by ineffective people (I'm generalizing here, there are obviously also some very good people working in city government). Improve efficiency and get more effective people working for the city and you can probably get much better customer service for the same money (or even less).

Mr. Mayor please get rid of ALL the COMPLACENT workers and hire the right people with the RIGHT attitudes.

It seems like there is some type of arrogance that some of the City workers believe they cannot be replaced? I am sure a whole bunch of people wonders why that it is? Why do some of the City workers have a TERRIBLE REPUTATION, when dealing with the public? Like the saying goes, IN WITH THE NEW AND OUT WITH THE OLD.

Mr. Mayor I am sure you will rid ALL DEPARTMENTS of the foolishness that has gone on for too long.

You will give us tax paying citizen’s smiles on our faces when we have to conduct business with the City’s departments instead of dreading it as so many people have been complaining for ions only to have the complaints go in the black hole.

Not the best site selection for a grass roots South Philadelphia meeting held Tuesday, April 29 at St. Gabriel’s School, 2917 Dickinson St.
It was an inconveinent locaton and not the best area to raise great expectations or any expectations as the meeting was held in the midst of a neighborhood that struggles bearly to exist, or to park or to arrive by public transportation. Make better choices!

Most people make City Employees a target for poor service or attitude. Well, did anyone take a realistic look at the taxpayers of the City. Most are poorly educated and there is high crime and murder rate. Isn't Government just a reflection of the Population? How about turning the target remarks around and refelct on the population of Philadelphia just like you would treat City Employees. Apply some "Brave" great expectations and find a way to retrain citizens, or "fire" the poor performing taxpayers and get them out of Philadelphia! Of course no one will print or buy into that, but they should.

John Jr,

You are absolutely correct. Remember, the customer is always right and if a worker thinks the customer is out of hand then please get the supervisor.

As the saying goes, in with the new and out with the old.

Change is inevitable.