Gripe : Downsizing: At What Point Does Lean Equal Incompetent? : The bank has the wrong account and wrong name, the insurance company can’t get the bills straight and the pension office hasn’t a clue.

In its frenzy to realize renewed growth and increased profitability, corporate America seems to have thrown away experience in order to reduce wages and cut benefits, replacing well-trained personnel with inexperienced part-time help.

While the re-engineering books of the 1990s extol the benefits of redefining roles and restructuring business as a link to being closer and more responsive to the customer, my recent experiences with banking, medical insurance and retirement benefits have been abysmal.

My bank called two days ago and a young woman left a message for me to please return her call concerning some problem with my checking account. I returned the call twice; each time she was unavailable. When I called the third time she asked me about somebody else’s checking account, someone with a different Social Security number than mine and a different last name. When these discrepancies were pointed out she said, “These things happen all the time; we are so overworked,” and then she hung up.

My insurer’s resolution of medical benefit claims and payments to providers has swung from excellent to acceptable to incompetent in less than a year. Whenever an error was made in the past a simple phone call corrected the problem. Recently, every explanation sheet sent to me is incorrect: some wrongly state that benefits were paid at a reduced rate because services were not authorized by my primary care physician; some deny all charges, stating I am enrolled for dental coverage only. The customer service representatives are matter-of-fact in saying these errors are commonplace, that they are happy to reprocess, and they depend on the patient to call and clear up any and all discrepancies.

I retired in September of 1994 when my own 20-year position was eliminated due to downsizing. I made the necessary choices regarding distribution of my retirement account and a stock account. When the checks were issued, there was an extra check with no accompanying statement. I called my former employer for an explanation to determine if these were tax-free monies. A young woman in the benefits department stated it was just “extra” money. Do you suppose the IRS will accept that? Following downsizing, restructuring, and re-engineering in which whole departments have been eliminated, there appears to be no one left in the company who is conversant with tax forms.

My experiences are not unique. A friend expresses dismay at recent errors with the monthly accounting from her favorite department store; another deplores his treatment at a national department store chain; a third reports that a receptionist position at her firm will be manned by others on a rotating basis and/or totally replaced with a convoluted voice mail system.

Those left in corporations following downsizing are struggling to keep their jobs, let alone their heads above water with the extra workload. Efficiency is gone and quality service to the customer is a rare commodity.

Change was inevitable in the current economic climate. But the loss of competence may end up killing the companies that the downsizers believe they are saving.