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I am SO BORED. The company I work for has taken away a requirement for customers to contact us and it's destroyed our call volume. I don't think any of us appreciated just how much that one thing filled the day. I'm trying to move into a different segment closer to my skill set but it appears all the job opportunities they're posting are just for show, with candidates picked out already. If I don't get into that segment of the company I'll have to seriously think about leaving unless something exciting happens. Monotony kills drive as much as overwork. Chicken Doodle fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 15:48
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Chicken Doodle posted:If I don't get into that segment of the company I'll have to seriously think about leaving unless something exciting happens. Monotony kills drive as much as overwork. Why aren't you already thinking about leaving? That's the only reasonable position if you work in a call center.
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Jun 14, 2014 04:39
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I am currently reading through the thread as I prepare for an interview with a call centre in my city. It is taking inbound calls from cars directing them to businesses/assisting in an accident, etc. My step-sister works with the company and told me it's definitely a poo poo job, but with decent pay and benefits. I currently work at a Canadian dollar store, which is a poo poo job with poo poo pay. At least the call centre would be full time.
Robin Sparkles fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 17:24
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At least it is inbound. Outbound/cold calling is the hell people in this thread are talking about.
Lampsacus fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 13:23
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Lampsacus posted:At least it is inbound. Outbound/cold calling is the hell people in this thread are talking about. I 100% without a doubt could not do outbound. You guys are saints.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:17
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Lampsacus posted:At least it is inbound. Outbound/cold calling is the hell people in this thread are talking about.
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Jun 18, 2014 16:39
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Just got a new job, moving from one helpdesk to a higher level one with a new company. Gettin a 6k annual pay bump from this aw yea. Don't be a lifer at your company, always be looking for new opportunities.
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Jun 18, 2014 18:01
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This thread has told me to never look at other call centers though. The call center I am in has some bullshit (using gendered pronouns in internal memos somehow violates antidiscrimination law) it's nowhere near the amount that I've heard from other people in this thread. I suppose it helps that I don't have to sell anything and although people aren't exactly pleased to have the issue I work with, generally they recognize that I perform a valuable service and are glad to have it resolved in a timely manner. Even on the relatively rare occasion I have to do outbound calls I am giving out genuinely important information that is worth interrupting dinner over.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:47
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Yeah, I am so thankful I have never been in a call center like that. Help desk is a whole different beast with some of the same annoyances, but on the whole it's a lot better.
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Jun 19, 2014 20:58
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Yeah, I am so thankful I have never been in a call center like that. Help desk is a whole different beast with some of the same annoyances, but on the whole it's a lot better. You poor, poor soul. 
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Jun 20, 2014 21:28
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So I washed out and paid to fly my own rear end back home from India after running our call center there for two months. I was having a hard time with living in a hotel room where the internet was down most of the time and the power was out way too often for a place that never gets below 90F but the last straw is when some dude from the hotel just walked his rear end into my room and started eating my food and asking for money with me sitting right there and my employer not being willing to move me somewhere else. They've been slowly dissolving our American management in favor of having a totally Indian run business and I think me leaving our Indian call center is pretty much going to push them to finalize that. I'm seriously tempted to just ask them to demote me to a regular rear end agent at this point so I don't have to deal with being micromanaged by people halfway across the globe from me.
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Jun 21, 2014 02:46
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I started a part time job at an outbound call center this month and I’m not sure I’ll keep it much longer. I still don’t understand how the companies that contract this out can make a profit- all we do is take a list of names, numbers, and businesses and call them up and hope that they are actually real. No one wants to buy this crappy crap. The guy sitting next to me somehow called an elevator phone. Nothing in this place makes any goddamn sense.
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Jun 26, 2014 04:46
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So uhh, how do I let the people in charge at my company know that their information security and customer information practices are complete dog poo poo? Just a quick list, but: 1. Customer payment information (cards with expiration and security code, checking routing/account) is stored in plain text and fully visible to anyone with access to contracts (250+ people) 2. The database of contracts is accessible externally WITHOUT going through a VPN (for work at home), see 1. HOLY poo poo. I mean literally someone could hack out a username/password (they could get a username pretty easily because they're employee name based) and get tens of thousands of valid payment credentials. 3. There's loving NO expectations set for processing payments and when automatic charges are going to fire off, especially for contract renewals, I've been told "they fire anywhere from 10-20 days early" and there's no documented notice to the customer, nobody says "You authorize us to take a payment from your X today for Y?" it's just the most loose, sloppy loving system I've ever seen. 4. People have print outs of scanned in checks and payments just sitting on their desks, they e-mail them around, they don't make any attempt to monitor and control who has access to vendor, customer, title company banking information. It's REALLY BAD. 5. As far as I can tell scratch notes and printouts of sensitive info aren't collected and shredded. I mean, if someone asks me "is my information safe?" when I process a payment, I literally have to say "No, no it's not.", but I've only been here for a month, so who the gently caress am I to try and rock the boat? EDIT: Does anyone know the name of any voluntary information security compliance standards? I remember a company I worked for years ago using one as a guide, but I can't remember the name, it was a short acronym. I think I just want to find one and show how my company fails at everything and print it out and put it on some manager desks or something. Loving Life Partner fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 03:59
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Loving Life Partner posted:So uhh, how do I let the people in charge at my company know that their information security and customer information practices are complete dog poo poo? Are you thinking of PCI? There are others but that's the one that applies to processing CC payments.
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Jun 27, 2014 04:49
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Loving Life Partner posted:So uhh, how do I let the people in charge at my company know that their information security and customer information practices are complete dog poo poo? PCI DSS. If you have a payment processor (you probably do), they'd probably terminate their relationship with you if they found this out. That said, your options are probably: 1) Contact the payment processor without mentioning anything internally. Your company gets hosed, but you don't get the blame. 2) Try to talk to someone about this internally, get brushed off because "it works and no one has hacked us yet" 3) 1 after 2, get fired as the squeaky wheel. That said, the Security Fuckup thread might be a nice place to vent. Seriously, how the hell is your DB exposed to the public internet?
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Jun 27, 2014 13:13
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Loving Life Partner posted:So uhh, how do I let the people in charge at my company know that their information security and customer information practices are complete dog poo poo? If your company is that lovely, they'd probably either fire you for noticing in order to shut you up or turn you into a scapegoat ("Hello? Police? Loving Life Partner was the only one who noticed that we had no security and then we got hacked. I think he's responsible."). Tip off their payment processor instead.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:25
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You could live a fairly lavish lifestyle if you wanted.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:22
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Volmarias posted:PCI DSS. If you have a payment processor (you probably do), they'd probably terminate their relationship with you if they found this out. That said, your options are probably: Payment processor will presumably require a successful PCI audit if notified, which are typically all sorts of bullshit nonsense. I love being told that it's a big issue that there are open ports on the outside of our proxy-based firewall.
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Jun 27, 2014 20:59
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It's happened. That moment us phone monkey dream and pray for. I got a job off of the phones.
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Jul 1, 2014 20:49
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Interview Monday for the call centre I mentioned up the page. Might be joining the ranks of this thread soon! Edit: Hired! Starting next Monday! Robin Sparkles fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 20:11
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Just found out this thread exists. I worked at a call-center dealing in extended warranties for over two years. If you were ever dumb enough to purchase a warranty at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or K-Mart, I was the guy you called when your poo poo broke and you found out that the extended warranty was worth less than the paper the pamphlet was printed on. Seriously. Extended warranties are a scam. If your TV breaks just hire a repair man. Thank me later. Anyways, the center I worked for was my first lesson as a young man in the inhumanity of corporations. Both me and my wife worked there and she was pregnant. Cue the nine month mark and she goes into labour, and I'm on a call with a customer when I get the news. I was told I had to finish the call before I could leave. The call went on for two hours and my supervisor flat out refused to let me transfer the call so I could, god forbid, be there for the birth of my child. But whatever, I got through it and got to the hospital in time. But it wasn't an easy birth for my wife and our daughter had complications. She turned out just fine, but there for a minute we thought she wasn't going to make it. So I was stressed, my wife was stressed and in immense pain, and the labour had lasted until the next morning around when my next shift was to begin. I was refused the day off for "not having given notice" regardless of the circumstances. I had to leave my wife and newborn daughter immediately after all that hell we went through or face losing my job. But again, whatever. I did what I had to do. So I go in for my shift and I'm exhausted, I'm stressed, I'm still worried about my daughter, when I get a spanish customer on the line. We were not allowed to speak directly to spanish speaking customers. The company had a translator service they paid for and were drat determined to use it. So in all circumstances you had to three-way call an interpreter. I tried to explain this to the customer and that I'd need to put them on hold for a moment and they flipped the gently caress out. I know very very basic spanish at best, so I didn't catch everything he said. But I do know all the most common spanish insults and swear words and he used every drat one of them as if he was going down a checklist. So I spent a good ten minutes just trying to calm him down and get him to acknowledge that I needed to put him on hold because you were absolutely never to put a customer on hold until they acknowledged that you were doing so. Finally my emotions got the best of me and I just hung up. Turned out my supervisor was sitting in a back room monitoring all my calls that day. Knowing what I had just come from, knowing I was upset about not being with my family, knowing I was stretched to the limit and stressed the gently caress out, he took it upon himself to sit in on my calls specifically to see if I'd gently caress up after the night I had just had. Not twenty minutes after I hung up the phone I was out in the parking lot with a cardboard box of my stuff. About six hours after becoming a new father. Three weeks later they fired my wife for "pointing out" even though they had no record what she was given points for. Only that they had miraculously accumulated despite her being on maternity leave for two of those three weeks. So in conclusion, gently caress call centers and hang every motherfucker who owns and runs them.
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Jul 13, 2014 00:17
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Esroc posted:hosed with my wife and I when she had a baby Assuming this was after the FMLA act of 1993, you more than likely had some manner of legal recourse, not that it matters now, but nothing they did was in anyway legal if you had both filed for FMLA leave with your HR rep.
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Jul 13, 2014 04:14
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jassi007 posted:Assuming this was after the FMLA act of 1993, you more than likely had some manner of legal recourse, not that it matters now, but nothing they did was in anyway legal if you had both filed for FMLA leave with your HR rep. There are enough loopholes in FMLA to drive a delivery truck through.
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Jul 13, 2014 21:25
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sullat posted:There are enough loopholes in FMLA to drive a delivery truck through. That may be ianal but the leave for a birth is pretty straight forward. My family has used it twice
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Jul 13, 2014 22:47
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sullat posted:There are enough loopholes in FMLA to drive a delivery truck through. This is pretty much true for all US employment laws unless your employer is an idiot and sends you a letter saying "You are being fired because of your race" or something equally boneheaded.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:48
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Real talk. I just recently got fired for needing a shoulder surgery. I talked to a lawyer and he said I had no case.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:01
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Ghostnuke posted:Real talk. I just recently got fired for needing a shoulder surgery. I talked to a lawyer and he said I had no case.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:07
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They made up a complaint and blamed it on that.
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Jul 16, 2014 05:21
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I spent most of the day off calls doing admin. It's so beautiful I'm having such a nice day
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Jul 17, 2014 07:10
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Esroc posted:So in conclusion, gently caress call centers and hang every motherfucker who owns and runs them. How are you not in prison for manslaughter? You're a better man than most.
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Jul 17, 2014 07:51
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Kat Delacour posted:I spent most of the day off calls doing admin. It's so beautiful I'm having such a nice day I'm off phones until September doing admin/training. I want to get the actual job after this. It's so loving close I can taste it.
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Jul 17, 2014 07:54
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How common is it for call centers to time people's bathroom breaks? I say this because our floor got a bunch of refugees from the service center and one guy told me that the new management had began pushing metrics where for the past few years there had been none, and one of them was a scheduled/timed bathroom break.
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Jul 18, 2014 00:56
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Peven Stan posted:How common is it for call centers to time people's bathroom breaks? I say this because our floor got a bunch of refugees from the service center and one guy told me that the new management had began pushing metrics where for the past few years there had been none, and one of them was a scheduled/timed bathroom break. Totally common. If not explicitly as bathroom breaks then as "aux time" that goes against your "adherence."
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Jul 18, 2014 02:47
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Peven Stan posted:How common is it for call centers to time people's bathroom breaks? I say this because our floor got a bunch of refugees from the service center and one guy told me that the new management had began pushing metrics where for the past few years there had been none, and one of them was a scheduled/timed bathroom break.
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Jul 18, 2014 02:53
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It's super common. I would call in anonymous reports to our ethics hotline and HR would come down on management, who would then change the metric's name while continuing to measure the same thing.
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Jul 18, 2014 03:40
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Aux time was to be avoided but as long as it wasn't a massive amount (or obvious you were auxing to shirk taking calls) nobody batted an eye. It's mainly for asking a manager a question/finish a report/run to pee. If you were really good it was a smoke break but that usually wasn't a good idea due to roaming managers.
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Jul 18, 2014 06:29
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Stanos posted:Aux time was to be avoided but as long as it wasn't a massive amount (or obvious you were auxing to shirk taking calls) nobody batted an eye. It's mainly for asking a manager a question/finish a report/run to pee. If you were really good it was a smoke break but that usually wasn't a good idea due to roaming managers. 
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Jul 18, 2014 15:43
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I hated the people smoking by the door because it invariably means an asthma attack and tons of glares when I start coughing. Hey, I'd be a lot happier without asthma, too. That, and the ventilation in the building blew, so the area near the door reeked, too. Or the one dude who would take like 8-10 breaks a day and not get chewed out because he creeped out the supervisors too much for anyone to want to deal with him. That said, I really hated how micromanaged the breaks were. 3 minutes? To the bathroom? HURRY UP AERO COME BACK OMG. They kinda stopped after I offered to take a picture of what I was doing in the bathroom because I got irritated coming back to my desk to several frantic IMs and warnings.
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Jul 18, 2014 16:36
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Aerofallosov posted:They kinda stopped after I offered to take a picture of what I was doing in the bathroom because I got irritated coming back to my desk to several frantic IMs and warnings. That's brilliant.
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Jul 19, 2014 01:29
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At the call center I work at the TLs and supervisors are too busy doing actual work to micromanage like that. If you take too much "Personal Idle" as they call it they may have a quick chat with you about it when they get around to reviewing the numbers, but there is no way they would have the spare time to monitor that sort of thing in real time.
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Jul 19, 2014 11:02
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