|
Abandoned Toaster posted:TL;DR: I worked in debt collections call center, I was offered a new job for inbound employee calls, after a year they turned us into another debt collections call center. This happened to the company (Perceptis) that the people who founded my company abandoned. It's like this looming spectre of possiblity and that would either make me quit or push to get switched up to management only never take calls type work.
|
#
?
May 16, 2014 12:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 04:56 |
|
|
Ooh yay! I've just found this thread, I remember reading some of it a few years back and thinking that I would never work in a call centre... Oh how times change. I've worked in a call centre for almost a year now, inbound delivery calls for a UK retailer, it's honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. The actual work is insanely easy and I'm learning to deal with difficult customers. The one thing that really annoys me, is when a customer calls in to schedule a delivery, and when I suggest a weekday they condescendingly snap at me saying "I can't possibly wait in on a Thursday! I DO HAVE A JOB, unlike SOME people!" I just don't understand their barbed comment! I have a job too... Otherwise I wouldn't be on the other end of the phone scheduling deliveries. On the bright side, I mentioned I was thinking about leaving the call centre to my manager because of money issues and some fuckery they had pulled with my shifts. Not four hours afterwards my manager had changed my contract (from a flexible contract which is anything from 30-50 hrs a week) to set hours, working 37.5 hours a week. My manager also went to her boss to over ride a decision that had been made to deny me a raise, so I'll get a raise too! At a menial job like this, getting confirmation that you ARE wanted and you are appreciated means so much.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2014 20:06
|
|
|
aDecentCupOfTea posted:
Oh man, I used to get this so much and it's so insufferable. I was usually reasonably calm and customers never bothered me much until they bust that one out. It's such an obvious thing and you can't just say the obvious answer it's pretty much a pet peeve of mine at this point. Glad I left that job, Call centers are hell.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 08:32
|
|
|
aDecentCupOfTea posted:The actual work is insanely easy and I'm learning to deal with difficult customers. That's not the problem. The problem is that the work is the same, boring poo poo, day after day, you get dumped on by assholes on the other end of the line with no recourse to do anything about them, there's usually only negative reinforcement and/or token recognition ("You got all perfect scores on your customer satisfaction surveys this month? Here's a piece of paper saying that. Now get back to work."), there's usually no direct way into a non-customer facing position, you're held to ridiculously dehumanizing standards (they may as well chain you to a desk while you're working), and the compensation is often pretty poor.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 08:54
|
|
|
Kreeblah posted:That's not the problem. The problem is that the work is the same, boring poo poo, day after day, you get dumped on by assholes on the other end of the line with no recourse to do anything about them, there's usually only negative reinforcement and/or token recognition ("You got all perfect scores on your customer satisfaction surveys this month? Here's a piece of paper saying that. Now get back to work."), there's usually no direct way into a non-customer facing position, you're held to ridiculously dehumanizing standards (they may as well chain you to a desk while you're working), and the compensation is often pretty poor. Oh... I'm sorry if that's your experience with call centres. Mine is pretty nice, paid above minimum wage, decent employee benefits, a bonus scheme that is actually pretty easy to reach. So instead of a piece of paper saying you've done well you get a nice extra £100/£300 that month. So not many of those points actually apply to my work place...are you not in the UK?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 11:39
|
|
|
Just chiming it to say I have mad respect for you call centre workers. I did cold calling sales selling lovely internet. - On my first break everybody was talking about how the boss is terrible. Apparently somebody was bringing him to court for hitting them over the head during the recent Christmas party. - After my first call he called me into his office and sat me down. He played the call out loud and made faces. After it finished he yelled "You missed this part of the script! CAN YOU EVEN READ? WELL CAN YOU? CAN YOU READ? YOU ARE AN IDIOT."* - The only guy in that manky sad work environment who seemed to get by was this kid who'd make like two calls a day. He'd just sit there staring into space for ages. Then dial a number and *always make the sale*. Every. Time. Twice a day. To this day I wonder how he did it. I feel like he actually was getting friends and family in on it. - Minimum wage. Of course. Unfeasible volumes of calls for a bonus. - A 'meeting' every morning that was really a prep talk by the boss. and by prep talk I mean "Why don't you fuckers make more sales jesus I can replace you all" etc. - An extremely untrusting work environment. It seemed to be a workplace people down on their luck or without options ended up. A dire pit stop where nobody made friends. - Crappy middle of the industrial park location. It was so depressing. So yeah. Grats to those currently in the pits of hell. Wow. *studying philosophy and politics, voracious reader, now a librarian.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 11:50
|
|
|
 10 months without a job in my graduate field(s) (well actually more like 18 but 10 months without a job at all when aiming for my field). I start in a new call centre this week. G-Spot Run fucked around with this message at 14:17 on May 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 14:04
|
|
|
Kat Delacour posted:
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 14:20
|
|
|
Kreeblah posted:That's not the problem. The problem is that the work is the same, boring poo poo, day after day, you get dumped on by assholes on the other end of the line with no recourse to do anything about them, there's usually only negative reinforcement and/or token recognition ("You got all perfect scores on your customer satisfaction surveys this month? Here's a piece of paper saying that. Now get back to work.") I think this is one of my major problems too with my job. The same day I got corrective action was the day I was rewarded with a luncheon with the senior VP for excellent performance. After it was over I came back and my manager was all "Can you come here? Yeah, you're getting a written warning for performance". Granted the luncheon was for March and the trouble was for April but still, you couldn't have waited? Guess you've got to get that on my file ASAP. We all know we're expendable and management knows we know so they don't do anything to lift morale and all the changes they make just make our job more difficult and tedious and they complain all the time about service levels and performances. Just this week they've started cracking down on several little things they let slide before, like coming back from break a couple minutes late, ending calls with a right killcode but one that doesn't support the figures they want, and daring to forget the "and" in the mini-miranda. I remember when I first started, I was naive enough I thought doing good work and doing what the department asked of me would reward me, so I sacrificed my time and happiness for them and instead they turned us into a dumping ground and they're bleeding us out. No one wants to stay here and I'm almost positive they're doing it so they can finally disband our department once they're down to an acceptable number of people so it's less work to get rid of them.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 15:30
|
|
|
Lampsacus posted:What is your field? Teaching and training. I also had a go at jobs around my other studies like website or communications coordinator stuff but mostly learning and training. I always got great grades but I was also always working so I wasn't available for extra projects or internships outside the actual course requirements and a few small workshops.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 16:13
|
|
|
aDecentCupOfTea posted:Oh... I'm sorry if that's your experience with call centres. Mine is pretty nice, paid above minimum wage, decent employee benefits, a bonus scheme that is actually pretty easy to reach. Nope. USA. I did three years in a call center and was nearly suicidal by the end (I would fantasize about driving into the median on the highway just so I wouldn't have to be at work that day). The place started out OK (not great, but not horrible, either), but a few months after I was hired, they signed a deal with a customer that was worth ten times all their existing business combined. And you can probably see where this went. They had to expand quickly, so they couldn't afford to have any hiring standards, which meant more and more lovely policies to try to cover for that until the place was miserable to work at. They also got rid of bonuses, the cut we got from passing people off to the sales team, and moved all the support folks to a separate facility twenty miles away, and they made huge cuts in what they offered new hires (I was making roughly double minimum, but after they started hiring en masse, they offered just above minimum). I got out three and a half years ago and it's one of the best things that ever happened to me. I actually have a career now.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 19:03
|
|
|
I hate our attendance policy more than anything. I'm sick and at work on a holiday listed on our holiday calendar. I have bountiful sick time banked up but it means poo poo because you get occurrences for calling in. I already did call in the last two days which puts me at the limit I can be in before negative paperwork poo poo comes out. Even though this is a holiday, I'm not getting the normal 8 hours + time and a half for working on a holiday because if you miss the day before or after a holiday they take that from you. Doesn't matter that I'm ACTUALLY loving WORKING THE loving HOLIDAY. While sick. gently caress this job. Someone kill me. My last therapist once mentioned that fully 1/3 of her clients work in call centers.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
Sub Rosa posted:I hate our attendance policy more than anything. I'm sick and at work on a holiday listed on our holiday calendar. I have bountiful sick time banked up but it means poo poo because you get occurrences for calling in. I already did call in the last two days which puts me at the limit I can be in before negative paperwork poo poo comes out. what on earth is the point of sick pay if you still get penalized?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 23:26
|
|
|
g0lbez posted:what on earth is the point of sick pay if you still get penalized?
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 05:13
|
|
|
It's the problem with having a job where you have to constantly be present to do any work.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 12:01
|
|
|
Sub Rosa posted:I hate our attendance policy more than anything. I'm sick and at work on a holiday listed on our holiday calendar. I have bountiful sick time banked up but it means poo poo because you get occurrences for calling in. I already did call in the last two days which puts me at the limit I can be in before negative paperwork poo poo comes out. Our call center has the same can't call off the day before or after policy. I got an exception once, it was pretty funny. Basically holiday was a Thursday. My normal shift is Sun-Thurs so I took Sunday off in advance to have a long weekend. Well my boy gets sick Sunday night, so I called off Monday. They took my holiday pay. I argued that 4 days post holiday actually has nothing to do with the holiday schedule. The whole idea of the rule is to prevent impromptu extended weekends, not to say that no matter how much time off you have, you'll get penalized. What if I had taken a month off post holiday, but still called off my first day back? Will they retroactively take my pay from a month earlier? I won my point and got my holiday pay because our handbook was worded really poorly. They released a new handbook which basically says no exceptions the next day you are scheduled to work post holiday you must not call off.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 13:13
|
|
|
jassi007 posted:The whole idea of the rule is to prevent impromptu extended weekends Exactly, which makes it madness that it could still apply when you don't actually get the holiday itself off. But it sure as gently caress does.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 14:35
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:It's the problem with having a job where you have to constantly be present to do any work. This can sum up a majority of call center's policies. Even though we dress like office workers and talk like office workers, we are not office workers. Closest comparison for policy and procedures would be a machine shop or manufacturing floor.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 20:57
|
|
|
BigDave posted:This can sum up a majority of call center's policies.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 23:07
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:I think a better comparison is any job in customer service. Being forced to wear ties on a Deli counter comes to mind.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 01:24
|
|
|
I always liked the comparison that call centers are 21st century coal mines. It's a job that pays more than minimum wage, usually has decent benefits and you barely need a high school degree to get it but you're gonna lose years off your life.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 03:15
|
|
|
g0lbez posted:what on earth is the point of sick pay if you still get penalized? So we have "Performance Acknowledgement" bonuses that we do quarterly here where I work and basically they are just things to dangle over agents' heads to monetize any punishments they might incur. If you do everything perfectly you get a check worth about a third of a normal paycheck every 3 months and they have yet to realize that no one gives a poo poo about that except for the people with kids who are scraping by here. At any rate, one of the big things that they will deduct on your PA is if you call in sick without giving 24 hours notice. If you call in sick less than a day before your shift you will lose (a fairly small amount of) money and have a "corrective action" filed against you. The best part of our most recet PA structure is that all employees lose 70% of their PA for a quarter where a client leaves us. We've had a few leave since I've started working here and it's all been due to executive negligence rather than the grunts, but hey, let's take that out on them. I also found out my boss' boss is resigning and that he makes ~250k USD a year and it's depressing to think of how long it would take for me to make that amount o fmoney.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
So there's this new guy in my department with the same first name as me and some agents I work with are getting confused. We're not in the same office so I've never heard his voice but everyone keeps saying weird things to me lately. In the past few weeks I've had people tell me I gave them the wrong information or that I was mad at them or that I was not prepared the last time we talked. That was the other guy. I thought about writing every complaint down in a report and bringing it to my supervisor but I figured that's what a crazy person would do. So figure I might as well enjoy it and indulge in my doppelganger's foolish tales. Makes work more interesting. Plus if I screw up on something I can say he did it. This one lady told me he was "about as useless as tits on a bull." I misunderstood and thought she meant something else. I mean yeah.. putting your boobs on like somebody's bowl of cereal would be pretty useless I guess? Who does that benefit?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 07:24
|
|
|
Sub Rosa posted:I hate our attendance policy more than anything. I'm sick and at work on a holiday listed on our holiday calendar. I have bountiful sick time banked up but it means poo poo because you get occurrences for calling in. I already did call in the last two days which puts me at the limit I can be in before negative paperwork poo poo comes out. I always loving hated that sick policy. You have to plan to be sick in advance.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 16:59
|
|
|
So apparently one of our people tested out our "24 hours in advance" sick call off policy last week by calling in 48 hours in advance and the manager he spoke to wouldn't "accept" it. What a lovely field to work in.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 21:51
|
|
|
Someone got fired for reaching our maximum occurances/call offs. Funny thing is, the guy was an abuser. He called off all time instead of scheduling days off in advance. So yesterday he got pulled over on the way to work and got a speeding ticket, which made him late. Bam gone. In addition he borrowed vacation time, so his last check will also be -20 hours to payback his vacation.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2014 14:37
|
|
|
So we have two lines of business with a very big company that pays us a lot of money. One is for phone support, the other is for web chat support. We haven't had an enforced SLA on web chat support in the last two years, our client didn't give a gently caress so it wasn't a big deal to let chat SLA hemmorage terribly for the sake of voice SLA. However, after a couple of years of 20, 30 and 40% SLs the client is ready to pull the contract and is now enforcing the chat SLA. This is a big deal, since this contract is worth a lot of money. So, you'd think chat would now be a big priority since we're about to lose the contract. Nope! Our voice leads are pulling people off chat onto phones any time we're holding, but we have over-delivered on voice SLA for three months, to the point where we're having to shuffle people to other desks and do layoffs. So we're tanking the SLA we really can't afford to miss to prop up the SLA we desperately need to bring down.  BlackIronHeart posted:I always liked the comparison that call centers are 21st century coal mines. It's a job that pays more than minimum wage, usually has decent benefits and you barely need a high school degree to get it but you're gonna lose years off your life. Also, you get fired when you're too sick to work (from the environment you work in, naturally) and while the starting pay and benefits are good, there's no room for advancement and the money you make when you start is the money you're going to be making when you leave. It's a pretty good comparison. Granted, this isn't as backbreaking or life threatening by any measure, but I'd be willing to bet all the toxic mold I'm inhaling from the vents that haven't been cleaned in twenty years will make my lungs look a lot like a coal miner's by the time I'm too beat down to work anymore. Mirthless fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jun 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2014 14:55
|
|
|
Jibo posted:If you call in sick less than a day before your shift you will lose (a fairly small amount of) money and have a "corrective action" filed against you. I guess the policy I quoted makes some kind of sense if you believe your employees are mostly bullshitting you whenever they call in sick. So you just focus on trying to manage your staffing levels instead of caring whether people are actually sick or not, actually able to work or not. Pretty demoralizing for the decent employees that don't lie about being sick though, goddamn.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2014 18:56
|
|
|
Col.Kiwi posted:Lol what. That's all kinds of hosed up. At my job if you try to call in sick the day before they'll say ok thanks for calling but why don't you try to get a good sleep and maybe you'll feel better tomorrow. If you still don't feel up to working tomorrow please call in sick at that time. And yes I work in a call centre environment. But it's not like the hellholes described in this thread at all. Sorry to those of you stuck in those conditions. Maybe it's better where I am because we're not outsourced, I work directly for the company I answer calls for and they are a good employer in general. Where I am it's like a typical white collar office environment, just with the typical call center focus on metrics and of course you spend 97% of your workday on the phone. You are lucky. I don't work for an outsourced call center, but I think job satisfaction has a LOT to do with who is on the other end of the line, whether or not you are outsourced. The closer you are to the general public, the more likely you are to hate the job and try to avoid work. I came to work with pink eye once, because it wasn't an illness that affected me in a "i feel like crap" kind of way and I could work just fine. I went to my manager, looked at him and told him, I have pink eye, here is my prescription, I'm not taking an occurrence. He sent me home and waved the occurrence. Found out later he got chewed out for "setting a precedent" Turns out call centers have a duality, where they realize illness affects productivity, but also can't help but be punitive about it for staffing reasons. gently caress them, it may be a lovely outlook, but if someone else gets sick because I can't stay home without punitive measures, that is their problem, not mine. I save my occurrences for when my kids are sick and I have to call out to watch them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2014 20:30
|
|
|
The one great thing about my last call center (Netflix, direct not outsourced) was we had the corp policy of unlimited time off. Limited paid time off, unlimited time off. So as long as your metrics were solid, no worries. Compared to the place I worked at before for 5wks (ACS/XEROX, outsourced for HughesNet omg ftl), and they were going to fire me for a third call out. I called out the third day to quit, and the manager thanked me for letting her know and said if I had called out again I'd be canned regardless of a doctors note! (I didn't tell her I quit to work at netfucks, but rather that I was sick, had a doctors note, and pretty sure the job was causing the sickness lol.) Definitely not in the polices, but that's at-will employment for ya! Escape call centers, y'all. Don't piss your lives away!
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2014 20:59
|
|
|
SiGmA_X posted:The one great thing about my last call center (Netflix, direct not outsourced) was we had the corp policy of unlimited time off. Limited paid time off, unlimited time off. So as long as your metrics were solid, no worries. I feel like I should have known that - Makes me want a job there or someplace like it... Holy poo poo, dream perk right there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 01:06
|
|
|
CountOfNowhere posted:I feel like I should have known that - Makes me want a job there or someplace like it... Holy poo poo, dream perk right there. I imagine the *real* business vs call center will have a limited amount of PTO (call center did too, I forget if it was 2 or 3 weeks, accrued based on hours worked or days worked for supes, who were salary) but unlimited vacation days. Probably a legit WFH policy too, providing you do work. gently caress call centers!! I'm glad I had a lot of time off the phones while I was doing that BS. And I have to say, it was a great life experience and taught me what I will never, ever do again.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 02:00
|
|
|
SiGmA_X posted:I swear we discussed it! I know how YOU got unlimited unpaid time off, but I didn't know that was a thing that you could do, like, as a regular person. You're not talking about VTO are you? 'Cause I knew about VTO.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
CountOfNowhere posted:I know how YOU got unlimited unpaid time off, but I didn't know that was a thing that you could do, like, as a regular person. You're not talking about VTO are you? 'Cause I knew about VTO.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2014 23:53
|
|
|
If you know you will have a certain rate of natural attrition there is no actual loss to it. Very few people can afford to take 'unlimited' time off without a set return date, and forcing the very few who can to resign and/or reapply will potentially cost a fully trained staff member and take up extra admin time replacing them. "Sally is coming back from her years long backpacking world trip? Oh good, cos Joe just finished college and John will probably be ditched for poor performance soon"
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 00:53
|
|
Guess who moved to Illinois and landed another job in a call center  Compared to the grind that was Progressive (140 calls a day) this place feels like a vacation (50ish calls a day, mostly with professionals, and I get to get up and do office work a lot). This is so loving temporary. This place has tuition reimbursement, I'm getting on my horse and going back to loving school.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 03:03
|
|
|
140 at progressive!? That's insane. We did around 100/8hr at Netfucks. 80-110 depending on call type, some folks were a little higher but had car higher call back rate. They started tracking that right before my final release.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 06:53
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:Guess who moved to Illinois and landed another job in a call center 140? Doing licensed agent stuff? That's insane. The licensed agents at Safeco averaged 50 in an 8 hour day, maybe 65 in a 10 hour day. My department, which helped independent agents rather than doing policy changes themselves, averaged 70 per person per day, 90-ish for a 10 hour day. How can you actually take that many calls?
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 13:39
|
|
|
A job's better than no job. When I left IL for NY, I got a much better call center job. But I'm still in the call center.  Loving Life Partner posted:Guess who moved to Illinois and landed another job in a call center
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 13:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 04:56 |
|
blackmet posted:140? Doing licensed agent stuff? That's insane. The licensed agents at Safeco averaged 50 in an 8 hour day, maybe 65 in a 10 hour day. My department, which helped independent agents rather than doing policy changes themselves, averaged 70 per person per day, 90-ish for a 10 hour day. I wasn't taking licensed calls, just all the frontline stuff, policy changes, billing, problems, etc. That queue was always back to back to back, and my handle time was really low because I was really good at my job, so I'd finish most calls in 2-3 minutes.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2014 17:34
|
|