|
My job was a lot better before they installed monitoring software. Our calls have always been recorded of course, and going over audio recordings for QA (along with reading the claim system output, sometimes weeks after the call was complete) was how it worked when I started there. Now they have an application that records your screen as video, along with the audio, so they can actually see what we're doing as we're doing it. The problem, of course, is that I like to gently caress around on the internet during dead air on a call, which is a no-no. But before they installed spyware, nobody was any the wiser. And it wasn't affecting my times or customer service anyway. blahh
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2011 20:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 08:06 |
|
|
martyrdumb posted:My job was a lot better before they installed monitoring software. Our calls have always been recorded of course, and going over audio recordings for QA (along with reading the claim system output, sometimes weeks after the call was complete) was how it worked when I started there. Now they have an application that records your screen as video, along with the audio, so they can actually see what we're doing as we're doing it. The problem, of course, is that I like to gently caress around on the internet during dead air on a call, which is a no-no. But before they installed spyware, nobody was any the wiser. And it wasn't affecting my times or customer service anyway. blahh Our main telephony techy guy told me that at his last workplace they installed that same software and inadvertently found out about four or five affairs being conducted at the workplace because of people sending email back and forth while on calls. I dunno, I can see the value in it as a coaching tool, but jesus gently caress does it make your staff feel like they can't do a drat thing without permission.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2011 21:36
|
|
|
Have there ever been any serious studies done on the psychological effects of that level of monitoring? Because, seriously, working in a call centre means you're living the life that the  brigade are always claiming to have. It's hilarious what people will do with work email, though; at my old job a guy (married) and a girl (unmarried) got fired for sending, oh, let us call them unprofessional emails to each other.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2011 06:51
|
|
|
A guy at our place was suspected of something borderline fraudulent so his emails abd outlook calendar were all pulled as part of the investigation. Turned out he wasnt a fraudster, but he WAS a big ol' racist. I have genuinely never seen so many epithets used by one person. Dude resigned pending disciplinary - shame, would have loved to see the fucker get sacked.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2011 08:17
|
|
|
Drimble Wedge posted:Have there ever been any serious studies done on the psychological effects of that level of monitoring? Because, seriously, working in a call centre means you're living the life that the Yeah my performance tends to decrease as my perception of being micromanaged increases. Leave me alone, and I'll do just fine. Spy on me, and I'll gently caress around and waste time just to spite the company. It hasn't gotten me fired yet, but my recent QAs have been excessively unfair and anal-retentive. Either the QA reps are grilling everyone extra-hard as of late, or I'm being set up to be "involuntarily separated." Guess I'll find out which, next year!
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2011 10:53
|
|
|
I'm like anyone else, I don't want to be treated like a two year old and micromanaged, but good god does it ever make me mad when I'm able to make my numbers and adhere to my schedule while working ball busting overtime, when someone working the same amount of overtime and getting paid the same amount is slacking off to the extent of literally working 50% less than me and isn't reprimanded for it. He'll play video games at odd times that definitely aren't his breaks, and if anyone is around he'll talk to them for as long as possible, including if supervisors are around. He even came to work, stayed at his computer and didn't take a single call for 2 whole days. He's great at what he does, when he chooses to do it, but he just slacks off so much and it drives me nuts.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2011 21:32
|
|
|
What have your supervisors said when you reported him?
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2011 20:11
|
|
|
I get in trouble for looking at SA constantly when I get screen capped. Quite a few times have been this thread. At least the QA laughed about it a bit. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2011 20:57
|
|
|
JackRabbitStorm posted:I get in trouble for looking at SA constantly when I get screen capped.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2011 04:46
|
|
|
BlackIronHeart posted:What have your supervisors said when you reported him? Our supervisors already make him sit by a supervisor, and one of them compiles the statistics, ranks us, and sends an email out to the floor, not to mention the fact that we've had numerous 'don't do this' memos about things that he does. They have to know. And I really should just ignore it and slack off myself more, but our call center really needs to get our hold times down or we could all potentially loose our jobs. Argh.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2011 06:27
|
|
|
Effexxor posted:Our supervisors already make him sit by a supervisor, and one of them compiles the statistics, ranks us, and sends an email out to the floor, not to mention the fact that we've had numerous 'don't do this' memos about things that he does. They have to know. And I really should just ignore it and slack off myself more, but our call center really needs to get our hold times down or we could all potentially loose our jobs. Argh. If your supervisors/managers have told you that the whole centre is at risk if you don't do something, then either the whole centre is at risk anyway because decisions like that are rarely made off the back of metrics like hold time, or yoru management is attempting to manage by fear. Either way, get your C.V./resume up to date and start looking elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2011 08:23
|
|
|
JackRabbitStorm posted:I get in trouble for looking at SA constantly when I get screen capped. I once got in trouble for looking at an article on stumptuous.com that had the word "gently caress" in the title. We aren't allowed to look at any websites at my company, but everyone checks their e-mail or reads the news anyway.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2011 00:45
|
|
|
legsarerequired posted:I once got in trouble for looking at an article on stumptuous.com that had the word "gently caress" in the title. We aren't allowed to look at any websites at my company, but everyone checks their e-mail or reads the news anyway. At my workplace the management tends to be pretty understanding - they all know there's no point just staring up at the ceiling while we wait for the customer to do the troubleshooting, so they have an extremely lax policy on internet usage. Then a group of people hosed it up one weekend by surfing the internet all day and not doing their assigned work, so everyone on weekend shift got a scary email and everyone else got a talking to at the next team meeting. It's not that they really disapprove of us looking at internet things while troubleshooting, it's only when it's a distraction from our work that it becomes a problem. froglet fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Oct 6, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2011 02:34
|
|
|
froglet posted:At my workplace the management tends to be pretty understanding - they all know there's no point just staring up at the ceiling while we wait for the customer to do the troubleshooting, so they have an extremely lax policy on internet usage. Not us! We're supposed to be trying to convince them to buy more stuff during lulls in troubleshooting. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2011 05:45
|
|
|
RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Not us! We're supposed to be trying to convince them to buy more stuff during lulls in troubleshooting. Hmm, my managers are semi-lax about Internet usage during off-time (as long as it's just tame stuff like checking e-mail, the news, etc), but I'm pretty sure that people at my center have been fired for using the Internet during phone calls.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2011 22:42
|
|
|
legsarerequired posted:Hmm, my managers are semi-lax about Internet usage during off-time (as long as it's just tame stuff like checking e-mail, the news, etc), but I'm pretty sure that people at my center have been fired for using the Internet during phone calls. I think it really depends on the situation and the person. I don't really have a track record as a trouble maker - in fact, I'm shift supervisor after hours sometimes. So a bit of internet usage is fine considering I do my work to the best of my ability and it doesn't seem to detract from my responsibilities. However, others have been told that they should do a bit less youtube and a bit more work. The team leaders reasoning is that he hasn't got the time to be monitoring traffic usage and he doesn't care what we get up to on the weekend providing things get done and we're not doing anything nefarious with the office internet connection (such as  ), so he'll only bring it up with us if it's individually impacting our work.It wasn't always like this - the last manager was a complete control freak about use of the office connection. E.g. he once saw me using some sort of web-based tool to do tests for something when he told me 'less internet, more work'. This was despite the fact I had just finished not only my work, but half of my useless coworkers work too. Also, we have a new guy. He's a bit... off. Such as how he acts really unusually towards the girls in tech support. Hopefully he'll get over it, because if he keeps disregarding my instructions when I'm supervisor even after I've spoken to the main shift supervisor about it, they'll have to pull him off nights (and we need all the night people we can get). froglet fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Oct 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 04:31
|
|
|
froglet posted:Also, we have a new guy. He's a bit... off. Such as how he acts really unusually towards the girls in tech support. Ugh, that's so awful. :\ Does anyone else feel somewhat annoyed when friends with regular jobs complain about how boring their day was, specifically to folks that have lovely jobs? My roommate bitches non-stop about how he does homework and watches movies at his job all day because there somehow isn't any work for him to do. Once I came home after a day of non-stop awful customers, and he started with his "boohoohoo I got high in the office bathroom and finished watching the new season of Breaking Bad at work today" routine, and it was so incredibly obnoxious that I pretty much called him out for bitching to me, of all people, about a job where you're left alone all day without any supervision. EDIT: I can understand how that sucks, but I'm just saying that I don't understand why he complains to me, of all of his friends, about this type of problem. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Oct 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 07:30
|
|
|
I can't understand how that sucks. I bust my rear end all day, since I've started a year ago there has only been a break between calls maybe a half dozen times. I used to have a slacker job with no supervision where I'd play video games and listen to talk radio for 8 hours a day between customers, and if I could do that again for the same money, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 12:54
|
|
|
legsarerequired posted:EDIT: I can understand how that sucks, but I'm just saying that I don't understand why he complains to me, of all of his friends, about this type of problem. I doubt he realises that in your eyes such a job would be awesome. I know I'd slowly go mad if my job had that much downtime, but that's just me. Maybe you just need to tell him 'look, please don't tell me how dull your job is, especially considering a lot of the time I have to deal with terrible people' because he doesn't realise him letting off some steam makes him sound like a prat and is alienating himself from you.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 14:31
|
|
|
Just got myself some call centre temp work. Supposedly just for two weeks but the temp agency reckons they'll need someone likely up until Christmas. Doesn't sound too bad, 15-20 minutes from my house, calling existing customers of the company to ask for gas/electric meter readings so the company can provide customers with accurate bills, so not trying to sell anything at least. Pretty good money too, considering. Wonder how long it'll take to get a thread-worthy story! 
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 14:36
|
|
|
froglet posted:I doubt he realises that in your eyes such a job would be awesome. I know I'd slowly go mad if my job had that much downtime, but that's just me. Maybe you just need to tell him 'look, please don't tell me how dull your job is, especially considering a lot of the time I have to deal with terrible people' because he doesn't realise him letting off some steam makes him sound like a prat and is alienating himself from you. "Oh, it must be so hard to pick up the phone and talk to people all day! Poor you!"
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2011 23:50
|
|
|
froglet posted:I doubt he realises that in your eyes such a job would be awesome. I know I'd slowly go mad if my job had that much downtime, but that's just me. Maybe you just need to tell him 'look, please don't tell me how dull your job is, especially considering a lot of the time I have to deal with terrible people' because he doesn't realise him letting off some steam makes him sound like a prat and is alienating himself from you. Yeah, this. I look forward to the weekends, just because during the week, when we get a prospect on the phone, we pass them off to another CSR to actually try and sign them as a client. On the weekends, we do it ourselves. During the week, it is the most repetitive job ever, because it's a lot of hit dial, hit leave vm, hit next. And I know that I shouldn't bitch about not having poo poo to do all day, because it's...a good job. Great pay. Great benefits. Great company. I did have one guy yesterday that is apparently treating his multiple physical ailments through prayer, though. Dude would not shut up about jesus and god. Floridians tend to do that, i've noticed. Californians are awesomely laid back, and nearly everyone I've spoken to in Ohio has been an rear end in a top hat. Our internet is filtered, but we do have access to wikipedia, which is a great time killer. Mostly because we have to be able to look up the various ailments that these people have to see if we can help them. "Dude, you have a rhinovirus? Yeah, don't think we can get you money for having a cold." Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Oct 10, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2011 16:50
|
|
|
Well my company picked up some new work. You know when you sign up/change/cancel cable service and they call you 50 times a day? Well if you call the number that keeps calling you, that is me. 10 cents a call + % of a LOB if I can sell a LOB to these people. Impossible. Kill me now
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2011 23:36
|
|
|
So I think I'm entering the first stages burn out. I'm using and abusing every off phones aux time I have, and don't really care about the consequences. I'm still taking 70-80-90 calls a day, but just not caring about the other stats. I'm still servicing customers to the best of my ability, but I'd rather turn and bullshit and groan with my equally burnt out cubicle mate than have good stats. I've also called off healthy and left early a few times using sick/vacation time. poo poo. This is the easiest job I'll ever get in my life, I hope I can work this out.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 00:16
|
|
|
Oh poo poo I completely forgot about this thread! I do tech support for a major ISP in the Netherlands, I'll write up some insane stories later. But for now let me just share this gem with you all. One of the co-workers on a different department recently got fired because he was masturbating to gay porn during calls. how he got away with it for half a year is a complete mystery to me but hey, we have some hosed up people working here. The best part about this? He was married and has 3 kids. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 00:24
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:So I think I'm entering the first stages burn out. I'm using and abusing every off phones aux time I have, and don't really care about the consequences. I'm still taking 70-80-90 calls a day, but just not caring about the other stats. That's how I felt two months into the call center job that I had. Unfortunately, I worked there more than four years after the burnout started. It was really good money. I wish I had something more positive to tell you but I doubt the feelings will pass while you still work there. I am broken still after 2 years. I can't stand being on the phone with anyone anymore, even briefly. I don't even like putting on my headset and go have fun on Skype with friends because gently caress that. And I am just getting over apologizing out of habit to people when things aren't my fault. Just make sure you're avoiding people who must make you relive every call they take while you're trying to have a break. Lauren fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Oct 11, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 01:16
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:I'm still servicing customers to the best of my ability, but I'd rather turn and bullshit and groan with my equally burnt out cubicle mate than have good stats. This is me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 03:38
|
|
|
I dunno, I'm just not challenged at all anymore. I rarely have to look at my guidelines, or call for help on problems. I just know what to do. Everything is easy and boring and I've done it before 100 times. I'm starting to get drat near psychic on most calls, I'm already on the screen to answer their question or I'm already pulling up the due date change on their bill based on their tone of voice and some of the info on the first screen. Like a buddy says, it's mindless enough to be dull, but not mindless enough that you can turn off your brain and think about other things or listen to music or whatever. It's some awful middleground.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 04:29
|
|
|
I know what you mean about the repetitiveness. Sometimes it helps if you have a cool customer who you can really have a conversation with; there have been times where I've really hit it off with someone and spent a few minutes talking about their dog or whatever; those sorts of calls can really restore your outlook somewhat and help make up for all the indignant people. Overall...sometimes adopting a sort of Zenlike detachment helps, or asking around if you can transfer to a different department or otherwise take on something new. Does anyone else ever feel like there's some "figure skating judging" going on with regards to QA? (as in, certain people are expected to do well so they automatically get better scores) I used to sit next to a girl who was usually ranked #1 or close to it, though I couldn't figure out why as she was very loud and had a very staccato delivery so I always went home with a banging headache. (Very sweet girl, though, just in case you were imagining some sort of shrieking bitch) Nevertheless, I figured she was on to something and tried to emulate what she said and did, to no avail; I'd still be getting mediocre to average scores while she continued hitting them out of the park. I still don't get it. About a year later, without really doing anything different, I started getting consistently ranked very high (in the top 10%). I wasn't doing anything different, and Loudy McVolume wasn't any more knowledgeable than me; in fact she would often ask me for help. Oh, and gently caress interrupters. You know the ones. "So, what text messaging packages do you offer?" "Well, you can get 300 messages for--" "Now lemme ask you this. Will that Blackberry work if I take it overseas?" [several minutes later] "  YOU STILL HAVEN'T TOLD ME ABOUT THE TEXT MESSAGES "As for as coworker shenanigans go, I have a story a friend told me. She worked for Bell Canada (gently caress I hate that company, and I was only ever a customer). They were encouraged to upsell their satellite TV packages at every opportunity and try to persuade customers to take on more channels even if they were calling about something unrelated. (I called Bell once to downgrade our package to reduce our bill, and as we were wrapping up the hapless rep, who no doubt had some firebreathing supervisor standing over him to make sure he made the pitch, then asked me if I wanted to get the movie channels FUUUUCCKKK YOOOUU). ANYWAY, friend told me that they were indeed pressured to do such things and they had all sorts of nifty incentives and prizes, such as the person getting the most sales in a given month winning an iPod or a TV or some other desirable thing. One woman kept winning and winning for a couple of months, upselling like crazy. Then the customers started to get their bills and call in... Turns out that every time she spoke to a customer, whether it was a general inquiry or a tech issue or a billing problem or whatever, she would silently be clicking around in their account, throwing expensive TV packages in there willy-nilly. It took a month or two for people to realize, once they started getting their now-inflated bills and going "WTF, I never asked for that." Drimble Wedge fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Oct 11, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 07:46
|
|
|
Lauren posted:That's how I felt two months into the call center job that I had. Unfortunately, I worked there more than four years after the burnout started. It was really good money. I wish I had something more positive to tell you but I doubt the feelings will pass while you still work there. I am broken still after 2 years. This is probably the best thing about the place I work. If I want to take a week off, I can. I don't get paid, but sometimes you just need to spend a few days relaxing and not being on the phones, so you can go back afterwards and keep doing the job. Drimble Wedge posted:Oh, and gently caress interrupters. You know the ones. The ones I hate most are the people who try to answer questions I haven't finished asking yet. It annoys me at work and in any other context. If you don't wait for me to finish you're probably not going to give me a useful answer so I'm just going to have to ask again. Your stupid attempt to save time has actually made this take longer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 09:10
|
|
|
I don't think those of us working in market research really count in this thread. It's too easy and too flexible.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 09:24
|
|
|
Tiggum posted:The ones I hate most are the people who try to answer questions I haven't finished asking yet. It annoys me at work and in any other context. If you don't wait for me to finish you're probably not going to give me a useful answer so I'm just going to have to ask again. Your stupid attempt to save time has actually made this take longer. Can't stand that either. Really, the only thing keeping me at my job is the ridiculous amount of PTO that we get. I counted it up, and I think I get about 200 hours of PTO a year (I can't remember how much I carried over from last year, but it's either 200 or a little bit more). I really, really love traveling, and I'm just totally dreading planning my trips around school or a different job when I get out. It would probably be easier to do weekend trips at a regular gig, but I could only do one or two big vacations a year. It's kind of silly, but I really care a lot about seeing more of world right now, and I would definitely say the amount of time off we get is a huge deal to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 19:15
|
|
|
Tiggum posted:
How do you feel about doing this from our end? I catch myself doing it all the time, because the calls are all pretty much the same, so I am used to the same questions over and over.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 21:05
|
|
|
Harminoff posted:How do you feel about doing this from our end? I catch myself doing it all the time, because the calls are all pretty much the same, so I am used to the same questions over and over. I think it just makes things go a little more smoothly and it's common courtesy to let the person say their poo poo because like Tiggum said, it just draws it out the call for everyone and it's an unnecessary annoyance. I guess it might be a habit for some people though, like when the waiter or waitress says "Enjoy your meal" and my friend always says "You too" and then feels stupid, like she should. Or the people that finish everybody's sentences for them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2011 23:13
|
|
|
I just discovered the Awful android app, and it makes reading the forums so much easier than browsing SA on my phone's browser. I think they have an app for iphone too. Whoever got in trouble for browsing SA at work should give this a shot.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2011 02:24
|
|
|
legsarerequired posted:I just discovered the Awful android app, and it makes reading the forums so much easier than browsing SA on my phone's browser. I think they have an app for iphone too. Whoever got in trouble for browsing SA at work should give this a shot. Yea that app was amazing for making my shifts more bearable.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2011 03:46
|
|
|
MASSIVE layoffs in my call center today, including nearly all of the managers. Everything's chaos right now. My team (in sales) is at half staff and our service department is down to 5 people. A lot of my friends lost their jobs today. gently caress. This is gonna be fun times...
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2011 00:04
|
|
|
Slightly off topic, but do you guys have redundancy payments in america?
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2011 01:35
|
|
|
Cast_No_Shadow posted:Slightly off topic, but do you guys have redundancy payments in america?
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2011 02:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 08:06 |
|
|
Cast_No_Shadow posted:Slightly off topic, but do you guys have redundancy payments in america? I guess a redundancy payment is the same thing as a severance payment, in which case, not for service sector work like call centers, no.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2011 03:46
|
|