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I'm working a 4x10 schedule, so I work Mon/Tues, get Wed/Thu off, then work Fri/Sat and get Sunday off. It's actually loving great.
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Mar 21, 2011 13:13
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Loving Life Partner posted:I'm working a 4x10 schedule, so I work Mon/Tues, get Wed/Thu off, then work Fri/Sat and get Sunday off. It's actually loving great. Yeah, if you can stomach it and they'll let you do it, compressed hours is the way to go. 'course some places won't offer it because it screws with their schedule flexibility.
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Mar 21, 2011 20:57
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greazeball posted:Is there any kind of work from home available when it's email only? gently caress having non-consecutive days off. What kind of rear end in a top hat makes a schedule like that? Some of the people who have been there longer do it, but I haven't even been there a week yet, so no go on that. Best call today was the profanity-spewing grandma who wanted to buy a moose handpuppet we didn't have in stock anymore.
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Mar 22, 2011 02:07
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My contracted working time is 42.5 hours a week. Boy how I would love to do that in 1 go and then have the rest of the week off.
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Mar 22, 2011 19:08
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Jesus christ my new job is a cluster gently caress of bizarre bureaucracy. I did not expect this of IBM I'll start of by saying it's actually pretty good for me, person with programming experience bypassing the entire pay scale and moving straight to $22 an hour with a recommendation for tier 2 support promotion if I can keep my metrics right. It's really bad for the people without experience in computing who take a large pay cut and no job security. But at the induction today, they were trying to explain just who we were working for. We don't work for IBM, we work for their hiring agency Manpower, but if anyone asks we work for IBM. If a customer asks, we work for Apple as an Applecare consultant and there is hell to pay if we don't lie to them.
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Mar 23, 2011 10:08
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I had an interview at a call center today and they sounded pretty positive about me, contingent on my passing an over-the-phone assessment of my Japanese skills (I always get worked up about these kind of tests but I usually do well on them so I guess I should be OK). So I guess I may soon be joining the ranks of all the other posters in this thread. 
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Mar 24, 2011 00:35
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Lord Windy posted:But at the induction today, they were trying to explain just who we were working for. We don't work for IBM, we work for their hiring agency Manpower, but if anyone asks we work for IBM. If a customer asks, we work for Apple as an Applecare consultant and there is hell to pay if we don't lie to them. How all outsourced call centres work, really.
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Mar 24, 2011 02:53
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Abuse calls are kinda fun, I had one click on the line at 5:05 and just let him vent it all out until 5:29, then reiterated once more why Progressive did what it did (we were totally in the right) and told him if I wouldn't listen to anymore of his abuse and considered our business finished. Oh yay, 5:30, time to go home
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Mar 24, 2011 04:10
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edit: nm
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Mar 26, 2011 20:17
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Thank goodness there's only e-mails on the weekends:quote:"My tracking information says the earthquake in Japan may delay deliveries. Can you assure me my items will not arrive radioactive"
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Mar 27, 2011 04:14
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Kitsch! posted:Thank goodness there's only e-mails on the weekends: Wow. There's a dude with his priorities in order.
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Mar 27, 2011 09:49
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Fil5000 posted:Wow. There's a dude with his priorities in order. Considering our website sells the majority of our products to mothers/expecting mothers/grandmothers, it makes it a little more more understandable, but nevertheless, hilarious.
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Mar 27, 2011 15:02
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Guess who's got two thumbs and can't collect poo poo? THIS GUY! Yeah, I was demoted. I am now a Transfer Agent, so I place the calls and ask for Joe gently caress, then transfer the call to a collector. Transfer agent is scut work, usually reserved for temps. I'm still in the same cube, but my neighbors ignore me, my boss yells at me, and I don't really talk to anyone for more then a few seconds. 
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Mar 28, 2011 07:08
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BigDave posted:Guess who's got two thumbs and can't collect poo poo? Together with your nick, title and avatar, this hilariously sad.
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Mar 28, 2011 12:16
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BigDave posted:I'm still in the same cube, but my neighbors ignore me, my boss yells at me, and I don't really talk to anyone for more then a few seconds. Except for the boss part, that sounds awesome. 
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Mar 28, 2011 19:45
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Ghostnuke posted:Except for the boss part, that sounds awesome. But, I don't DO anything! I just sit there, dial phone numbers, get voice mail, hang up and repeat. My cube neighbors ignore me, and sometimes hours will go by without me saying anything. The whole thing is more dull then a butter knife, and I'm not used to it! I am used to talking to people and helping them. Makes me almost miss the sales floor...
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Mar 29, 2011 06:22
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BigDave posted:But, I don't DO anything! I just sit there, dial phone numbers, get voice mail, hang up and repeat. My cube neighbors ignore me, and sometimes hours will go by without me saying anything. So basically they've got you being an autodialler? Man, that sucks.
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Mar 29, 2011 06:24
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Loving Life Partner posted:I'm working a 4x10 schedule, so I work Mon/Tues, get Wed/Thu off, then work Fri/Sat and get Sunday off. It's actually loving great. <3 4x10. Tuesday-Friday 10p-8a here. Love 4x10 schedule so so much. When I was 5x8 from 10p-6a, I hated it. 10 hour shifts are SO MUCH BETTER if you work an overnight shift. Problem is, it is hard to go back to anything else after that.
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Mar 31, 2011 09:30
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Starting a new Tech support job out where I live, it's internal, most money I've made in my life and it's corporate support, no customers just help desks. And according to friends who work there, they treat you like....adults.... No constant stat updates, and you manage your own time. Needless to say stoked, that and I have a good chance of getting my vampiric life back.
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Mar 31, 2011 19:09
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Just started a Telephone Interviewer job, and I'm already thinking of looking for a different position. It's nothing but cold-calling people who think you're a telemarketer even though you're doing legitimate research for universities. So lots of hang-ups, lots of disconnected numbers, lots of answering machines, lots of angry respondents, and I'm supposed to somehow land an interview every four hours when I'm just dialing random numbers. Should I just suck it up or start the job search over again?
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Apr 2, 2011 08:28
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Welp, got a job at a call center doing tech support basically. Not exactly what I dreamt of doing with my college degree but I guess I do get to use my Japanese skills.
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Apr 2, 2011 08:36
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I'm sick of all the training I have to do for my job. I just want get on the phones and start answering questions  Oh well, at least I'm learning a lot about soft skills and communication theory that is super interesting
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Apr 2, 2011 12:09
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ProfessorDandypants posted:Just started a Telephone Interviewer job, and I'm already thinking of looking for a different position. It's nothing but cold-calling people who think you're a telemarketer even though you're doing legitimate research for universities. So lots of hang-ups, lots of disconnected numbers, lots of answering machines, lots of angry respondents, and I'm supposed to somehow land an interview every four hours when I'm just dialing random numbers. Take the paycheck, keep looking for a job. On another note, I work as a software engineer for a company that makes call center and automatic/predictive dialer software. I also have to take support calls from your managers. They do dumb things and then call shouting "WHY NO WORK". Good times. If anyone's interested in the software behind what you're doing, or dumb things your managers do, ask me whatever.
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Apr 2, 2011 15:19
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Null Set posted:Take the paycheck, keep looking for a job. Our relationship with our dialler provider is hilarious - they also provide our scheduling/forecasting software. Basically guys at my level that are reasonably techy and use their software regularly get on fine with the support people. However, someone somewhere has deemed that we're not allowed to talk to the provider directly. We must instead log whatever question or issue we have as an incident with our tech support function. This is then escalated to the second level tech support function which is in India. Once they realise they haven't got a damned clue what to do with an autodialler or a workforce management bit of kit they call the provider, who calls the person who initiated the whole thing back straight away. Basically 30 second long calls have been extended into a series of phone calls over the course of a couple of hours. Yaaaaay.
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Apr 2, 2011 17:27
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Fil5000 posted:Basically 30 second long calls have been extended into a series of phone calls over the course of a couple of hours. Yaaaaay. My employer (not even a call centre) instigated a similar policy a while back with the justification that it would allow them to get a clearer picture of common faults so they could take appropriate action with the vendor. Nice idea in principal but when a 5 minute period of being unable to work turns into a 2 hour period of being unable to work, which costs the company more? Left hand, meet right hand.
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Apr 2, 2011 17:35
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rolleyes posted:My employer (not even a call centre) instigated a similar policy a while back with the justification that it would allow them to get a clearer picture of common faults so they could take appropriate action with the vendor. Nice idea in principal but when a 5 minute period of being unable to work turns into a 2 hour period of being unable to work, which costs the company more? Yeah, think that was the logic behind the change for us, however we don't ever bother calling the provider for simple things. The last fault I had to call them for was something up with the datafeed between the call distributor and the forecasting/scheduling software. I had to explain to two separate tech support people what both of those things were, wait for a DAY as it got logged at the wrong incident level, then spent about fifteen seconds talking to the vendor who fixed it during that call. Utterly pointless.
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Apr 2, 2011 17:41
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Null Set posted:Take the paycheck, keep looking for a job. Call center managers, jesus gently caress. I got off the phones because they needed another IT person. Then I got to do the other kind of account management for them. The password reset fee ended up at $20 and the default password I reset it to was "bonehead". I got at least $100 from one guy alone. The owner despised most of the staff, so nobody was likely to complain. Then there were the reports. I did a reporting application in Filemaker that sent emailed the leads to the client. It had two buttons; Run Report and Email Leads. People had trouble with this. It was literally a big green button and a big green button marked "1....." and "2...: And people with college degrees couldn't cope. Once, while one client was on a plane heading for a big internal sales conference I hear this:  We've been forgetting to press the Email Leads button and our client has to have all of those leads in his email before he lands in three hours. How many leads are there ? About 1100  It took half an hour to repurpose the beefiest machine in the shop not already serving a production database. By the time the client land he didn't have all of them, but a few hundred emails were waiting for him and more coming in quickly. loving idiots. "We forgot to send the client what he's paying for HURRR". The clients weren't the leading lights of their organizations either. One European ERP vendor had the bright idea of having one toll-free number that works from anywhere in the world. Literally any country with tin cans, strings and dial tone. I miss my old AT&T rep, she took the time to do a presentation on , "why this is impossible and will remain so for at least a decade." They're out of business, their shell having been sold three times. I like to think a bunch of greedy, dishonest, incompetent salespeople and a bunch of actively evil, incompetent call center managers were a match made in heaven. The call center company has folded and been acquired to. I'm outliving my old nemeses and it feels good.
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Apr 2, 2011 17:56
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everyone posted:red tape This is doubly stupid because I don't always know if something's gone wrong (granted, there's plenty of poo poo that happens that you never see because we catch it in time). So the longer it takes to tell me, the longer the center will be down. Which means everyone gets upset- especially since it's generally something I can fix in under a minute. The most maddening thing is when someone opens a ticket about an issue, then calls within two minutes of the ticket being opened. Then demands to know when it's going to be fixed do it right now we're losing money raaaaaaagh. I have had about six seconds to seriously look at this what is wrong with you
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Apr 2, 2011 17:58
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mllaneza posted:Then there were the reports. I did a reporting application in Filemaker that sent emailed the leads to the client. It had two buttons; Run Report and Email Leads. People had trouble with this. It was literally a big green button and a big green button marked "1....." and "2...: And people with college degrees couldn't cope. Once, while one client was on a plane heading for a big internal sales conference I hear this: quote:One European ERP vendor had the bright idea of having one toll-free number that works from anywhere in the world. Literally any country with tin cans, strings and dial tone.
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Apr 2, 2011 18:08
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Null Set posted:ahahahaha how could anyone with any experience in telecom think this, TFNs are already the biggest beancounter slapfight without throwing in international dialing It rapidly became obvious that she'd already told her bosses she'd get it done and promised to meet a deadline. There were hints that a big print job was just waiting for the number to be put in. edit: she actually didn't have any experience in telecom. She didn't want to listen to those who did either. Come to think of it, she didn't have any experience in anything really. mllaneza fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 2, 2011 |
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Apr 2, 2011 18:17
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mllaneza posted:It rapidly became obvious that she'd already told her bosses she'd get it done and promised to meet a deadline. There were hints that a big print job was just waiting for the number to be put in. That poo poo makes me angry. People that have literally no clue who think that sufficient "blue sky thinking" can overcome real technological restrictions on what is possible.
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Apr 2, 2011 18:31
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Fil5000 posted:That poo poo makes me angry. People that have literally no clue who think that sufficient "blue sky thinking" can overcome real technological restrictions on what is possible. She didn't yell. I'm happy. Call center life really does hammer your expectation right into the loving ground, doesn't it ?
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Apr 2, 2011 18:40
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mllaneza posted:She didn't yell. I'm happy. Moving from the operational side of a call centre to a forecasting/planning function where I'm on a team full of people who know what they're doing, talk straight and don't gently caress each other over was like a breath of fresh air.
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Apr 2, 2011 19:04
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My call centre is closing soon due to the high Canadian dollar. I'm really leaving for a new job but yay for severance.
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Apr 2, 2011 22:24
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So this old fruitcake called in, started the call by asking me my last name, so I knew it was going to be good. I give her my extension number. She wants to preface everything she's about to say by having me note that she's a good customer who pays on time all the time, etc. I acknowledge this. She then proceeds to tell me that she will be canceling her insurance policy as soon as possible, because she heard Peter B Lewis (a "chairperson" and figurehead, essentially of the company) is donating 8 BILLION DOLLARS to the American Civil Liberties Union, being (literally) a card carrying member, I was delighted to listen to this crazy dingbat. She essentially said they're an awful terrorist organization that is seeking to overthrow the US Federal Government. I started reading a "Peter B Lewis" script we have, because these calls happen at times, she interrupts me halfway to go ".. and in your latest commercial, Flo says 'power to the people', so you can see where THAT'S going" Then she proceeded to tell me that she's a very influential person and when we get THOUSANDS of calls to cancel policies because of this, don't be surprised. *click* Anyway, yeah, fantastic.
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Apr 3, 2011 01:07
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Loving Life Partner posted:She then proceeds to tell me that she will be canceling her insurance policy as soon as possible, because she heard Peter B Lewis (a "chairperson" and figurehead, essentially of the company) is donating 8 BILLION DOLLARS to the American Civil Liberties Union, being (literally) a card carrying member, I was delighted to listen to this crazy dingbat. Aww, it was only $8 Million. Still, that's pretty loving awesome of him!
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Apr 3, 2011 21:02
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Me: "Alright, if you will just click "Start" or the start icon, its a little blue icon that is the Windows symbol in the lower left corner. This will bring up the start menu." Her: "Ok." Me: "Alright, then click "All Programs and-" Her: "Wait. I'm still trying to get the menu to come up." Me: "Ok." *Time passes* Me: "Did you find it?" Her: "Find what?" Me: "The start menu." Her: "Huh" Me: "Ff you will just click "Start" or the start icon, its a little blue icon that is the Windows symbol in the lower left corner. This will bring up the start menu." Her: "Whats that" Me: *describes in even greater detail* Her: "Oh, I found it." Me: "Ok, now click "All Programs"" Her: "My computer froze." Me: "Alright, lets give it a minute." *three minutes pass with silence* Me: "Are you there?" Her: "Oh yeah." Me: "Is it still froze?" Her: "Oh, no. It started working." Me: "Ok, lets click "All Programs." Her: "My battery fell out of my laptop. Its booting back up now." Me: ":'("
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Apr 4, 2011 01:00
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Loving Life Partner posted:So this old fruitcake called in, started the call by asking me my last name, so I knew it was going to be good. I give her my extension number. She wants to preface everything she's about to say by having me note that she's a good customer who pays on time all the time, etc. You must work in CRT.
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Apr 4, 2011 03:40
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Bovine Delight posted:You must work in CRT. Naw, just regular old schmoe servicing policies. It was clear right from the start of the call that she just wanted to say her dumb speech and get on her merry way. What the hell ever. I'll kick them to CRT when it's worth a shot.
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Apr 4, 2011 04:10
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Dang, it's been ages since I posted in here and I don't even have any stories to share right now . I do, however, have a quick question: Des anyone havw a favourite stress thoy they like to keep on hand to bash about so they don't lose it with the customers? I've had a few, but my latest one is starting to fall apart at the moment and I need something a little sturdier now the new tax year's just started.
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Apr 4, 2011 19:58
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