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Konstantin posted: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. At mine the "supervisors" only job was to monitor a row of 10-12 people. It was the most coveted position because you were paid 33k a year to basically be "Lord of Cubicle Row Four". All they did all day was listen in on calls, go over the stats of their assigned employees, and dish out the punishment when one of us stepped out of line.
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Jul 19, 2014 11:26
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Esroc posted:At mine the "supervisors" only job was to monitor a row of 10-12 people. It was the most coveted position because you were paid 33k a year to basically be "Lord of Cubicle Row Four". All they did all day was listen in on calls, go over the stats of their assigned employees, and dish out the punishment when one of us stepped out of line.
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Jul 19, 2014 14:39
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The last supe I had before I got out of the call center questioned why my Aux time had risen from 4% to 8% in the last month (Goal for my level was to be under 9%). I told him that I was taking more bathroom breaks due to my doctor advising me to drink way more water for my kidney problems. He asked if I could hold it until my breaks/lunch, which were spaced out every 2 hours. His final compromise was to break up my 2x 15 minute breaks into 3x 10 minute breaks. In retrospect, I should've just pissed my pants to prove a point.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:35
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You should have claimed diabetes but then again I'm sure there'd be an excuse for that too. And it's not like that would be a far fetched claim in a lot of call centers.  (I gained 15 lbs in my stint at one.  )
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Jul 20, 2014 05:15
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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. ALL HAIL THE FREE MARKET.
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Jul 20, 2014 08:51
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BlackIronHeart posted:The last supe I had before I got out of the call center questioned why my Aux time had risen from 4% to 8% in the last month (Goal for my level was to be under 9%). I told him that I was taking more bathroom breaks due to my doctor advising me to drink way more water for my kidney problems. He asked if I could hold it until my breaks/lunch, which were spaced out every 2 hours. His final compromise was to break up my 2x 15 minute breaks into 3x 10 minute breaks. In retrospect, I should've just pissed my pants to prove a point. I bet your 4% was pulling down his team average enough that he didn't have to confront someone sitting at 12% that either had a medical condition or they were just scared of.
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Jul 20, 2014 08:53
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Esroc posted:At mine the "supervisors" only job was to monitor a row of 10-12 people. It was the most coveted position because you were paid 33k a year to basically be "Lord of Cubicle Row Four". All they did all day was listen in on calls, go over the stats of their assigned employees, and dish out the punishment when one of us stepped out of line. Stanos posted:You should have claimed diabetes but then again I'm sure there'd be an excuse for that too. Gotta look out for # 1.
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Jul 20, 2014 10:04
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I want to publicly apologize if any of you happened to be the guy I talked to with Verizon a couple months back. I had problems with my GS4 ever since the 4.4.2 OTA, slowdowns and random crashes and whatnot, that persisted after a clean wipe. I wasn't really TOO steamed, it was inconvenient but nothing I wasn't doing to my tablet anyway once every couple of weeks when a new nightly came out. But I was driving through rural as gently caress Georgia on a business trip one day when my Maps randomly stopped pulling data. I pulled over and couldn't get to the Play Store either. So I called up Verizon and proceeded to be the biggest loving rear end in a top hat to the guy that answered the phone about how I'm paying $100 a month for a service that barely works, the OTA is terrible and I want a new phone, etc. The guy remained calm, looked some stuff up, and sent me a text with a link. Google Play Services had an interruption that day. Sincerely Verizon guy, I'm very sorry.
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Jul 20, 2014 16:11
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Pudgygiant posted:I want to publicly apologize if any of you happened to be the guy I talked to with Verizon a couple months back. I had problems with my GS4 ever since the 4.4.2 OTA, slowdowns and random crashes and whatnot, that persisted after a clean wipe. I wasn't really TOO steamed, it was inconvenient but nothing I wasn't doing to my tablet anyway once every couple of weeks when a new nightly came out. But I was driving through rural as gently caress Georgia on a business trip one day when my Maps randomly stopped pulling data. I pulled over and couldn't get to the Play Store either. So I called up Verizon and proceeded to be the biggest loving rear end in a top hat to the guy that answered the phone about how I'm paying $100 a month for a service that barely works, the OTA is terrible and I want a new phone, etc. The guy remained calm, looked some stuff up, and sent me a text with a link. Google Play Services had an interruption that day. That is nice of you. Some people have the ability to shrug it off. Others, like me, well when you get bad customer service, its because I expect all interactions to be like this, so basically I am not the person you'd like to speak to on the other end of the phone. Customers made me a monster, now they have to deal with it.
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Jul 20, 2014 17:15
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BlackIronHeart posted:The last supe I had before I got out of the call center questioned why my Aux time had risen from 4% to 8% in the last month (Goal for my level was to be under 9%). I told him that I was taking more bathroom breaks due to my doctor advising me to drink way more water for my kidney problems. He asked if I could hold it until my breaks/lunch, which were spaced out every 2 hours. His final compromise was to break up my 2x 15 minute breaks into 3x 10 minute breaks. In retrospect, I should've just pissed my pants to prove a point. Get your doctor to write a note and file it straight to HR stating that you have to take more bathroom breaks outside of your break aux. I did that when I had to pee more because of my medication and my supervisor basically sat me down and said 'as long as you aren't in there for more than 5 minutes or spotted leaving the building, I won't hold it against your stats in any way'. Though really, she had to do that according to the Americans with Disabilities act. You have a right to pee as much as you want as long as your doctor writes a note, and my psychiatrist had the paper and pen out from the moment that I mentioned it.
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Jul 21, 2014 03:35
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Esroc posted:At mine the "supervisors" only job was to monitor a row of 10-12 people. It was the most coveted position because you were paid 33k a year to basically be "Lord of Cubicle Row Four". All they did all day was listen in on calls, go over the stats of their assigned employees, and dish out the punishment when one of us stepped out of line. I've never understood why call centres need that kind of supervision, I've seen my boss in person once in the past 5 months for my review and about 90% of that time was shooting the poo poo and gossiping about the stupid poo poo people here do.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:39
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I got bitched out a few times for bathroom breaks. The last time it was brought up was when I was going to be written up. I said I wasn't signing the writeup until I talked to the HR rep and the CEO of the centre. It was dropped.
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Jul 21, 2014 20:42
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sbaldrick posted:I've never understood why call centres need that kind of supervision, I've seen my boss in person once in the past 5 months for my review and about 90% of that time was shooting the poo poo and gossiping about the stupid poo poo people here do.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:26
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Blue_monday posted:I got bitched out a few times for bathroom breaks. The last time it was brought up was when I was going to be written up. I said I wasn't signing the writeup until I talked to the HR rep and the CEO of the centre. It was dropped. That's pretty brilliant. I know that my company's site director had *no* idea that people were being told to not use the bathroom--she was aware that our aux time was monitored, but she had no idea that a sick person would be criticized for too much bathroom time, for example. Our central HR visited our center a few times after I kept calling the anonymous ethics hotline, and I discovered they had no idea that there were ANY bathroom restrictions. I saw my direct supervisor lie about something she told me to her own boss when she got put under a microscope, so it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted these things kept under wraps.
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Jul 23, 2014 03:33
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Effexxor posted:Get your doctor to write a note and file it straight to HR stating that you have to take more bathroom breaks outside of your break aux. That's good advice but my story has a happy ending. I was called with an offer for a way better job in that very meeting after a good interview two days beforehand. My supe insisted on listening to a call in that coaching session and my cell rang while we were listening to it. After a brief conversation with my new boss, I told my supe I needed an exit interview with HR as today would be my last day. 
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Jul 23, 2014 08:19
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I can't believe I forgot to share this in this thread. So the department that processes payment plans is on the same floor as the department that takes in mail. One day, I hear that the floor was evacuated, due to a tweet from the local paper who heard it over the police radio scanner. I hear through the grapevine that they evacuated because of a box. So of course we're all cracking up because oooo, they were scared of a box, what wusses. Then we find out that it was because there was a powder in the box, and suddenly we're all worried that our coworkers now have anthrax, and there goes our jobs. Then, the story leaks out. The powder? One of our borrower's ashes. His wife got tired of us calling so she decided to prove to us that he was dead. By literally sending him to us. I mean, come on lady. Just send in the death certificate.
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Jul 24, 2014 03:21
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Effexxor posted:I can't believe I forgot to share this in this thread. No, this was the correct thing for her to do. I used to work at a CC company that had a bad habit of calling even after the death certificate was faxed/mailed/emailed/sky written/notarized by a unicorn.
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Jul 24, 2014 03:41
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One of my more memorable moments was having to tell someone that no, we can't write off a $200 bill because your grandpa died and was on the account. He thought he hung up so I started doing my normal after-call work and I could very loudly hear him yell "YOU rear end in a top hat, GO gently caress YOURSELF" and then start banging on something in the background. I felt really bad about it for a bit but how am I going to explain something like that to my boss?
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Jul 24, 2014 04:38
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ratbert90 posted:No, this was the correct thing for her to do. I used to work at a CC company that had a bad habit of calling even after the death certificate was faxed/mailed/emailed/sky written/notarized by a unicorn. Not if you happen to work for a federally contracted company with very strict rules on discharge of debt after death. All we need is a valid, high quality copy of the death cert and the debt is gone and any payments made after the date of death are returned. And it is especially not a good idea to send a box with a suspicious white power to a federally contracted company. Plus, how are we supposed to know that it was actually his ashes? She could have got some out of her Weber grill, we wouldn't know. It's kind of hard to believe that I have to say this, but it is really not a correct idea to send your spouse's ashes to your loan servicer, unless the idea of terrorism charges and the debt not getting discharged is an appealing one.
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Jul 24, 2014 15:47
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Effexxor posted:terrorism charges
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Jul 24, 2014 16:32
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martyrdumb posted:Did that actually happen in this case? Or are you just posturing? Remember when a guy went to a Social Security call center with a shot gun and went on a little mini rampage? After that, the US government got really serious about safety with their call centers. If someone threatens to kill a federal employee or federally contracted employee at their job, that is considered to be a terroristic threat and they are charged accordingly. Granted, they have to be specific threats, i.e. 'What city are you in? I'm going to come kill you', but that's still enough to get charged with a terroristic threat against a federal employee. As for this specific case, I don't know if she officially got charged but I do know that they did have to evacuate the floor, call in the police and a team to test to see what the powder was, so I'm pretty sure she had to get charged with something. Not to mention the legal issues with transporting human remains through the US postal service.
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Jul 24, 2014 17:15
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What's funny to me is that you continue to blame the widow for you continuing to pester her until she took drastic action. Maybe her actions aren't the problem here...
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Jul 24, 2014 19:56
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Effexxor posted:Remember when a guy went to a Social Security call center with a shot gun and went on a little mini rampage? After that, the US government got really serious about safety with their call centers. If someone threatens to kill a federal employee or federally contracted employee at their job, that is considered to be a terroristic threat and they are charged accordingly. Granted, they have to be specific threats, i.e. 'What city are you in? I'm going to come kill you', but that's still enough to get charged with a terroristic threat against a federal employee. quote:Effective December 26, 2013, the Postal Service revised its Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 601.12 to require mailers to use only Priority Mail Express service when shipping cremated remains. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 20:15
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Has anyone ever worked in an internal employee call center for a major luxury retailer? I currently work as internal IT support for a government agency and I put out some feelers for a new job and i've been pounced on pretty hard. They seem to be courting me pretty aggressively and even offering me more money as I hm and haw. Is this normal? Is this a good sign? Will I regret my life if I go with them? *why i'm leaving the government - I have ZERO job progression and have been stagnant for 3 years. Despite amazing healthcare and retirement... I kind of want to kill myself every day. *
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Jul 24, 2014 21:58
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Tigntink posted:Has anyone ever worked in an internal employee call center for a major luxury retailer? I currently work as internal IT support for a government agency and I put out some feelers for a new job and i've been pounced on pretty hard. They seem to be courting me pretty aggressively and even offering me more money as I hm and haw. If it were me I'd hold out for a junior sysadmin position. The new job is almost certain to be more hellish than government work.
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Jul 25, 2014 00:22
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:If it were me I'd hold out for a junior sysadmin position. The new job is almost certain to be more hellish than government work. Unfortunately I didn't see any job postings that matched that sort of description but the good news was that during the interview I asked about progression and one guy in the room had gone from floor associate to call center manager, up through about 5 job titles in 5 years. They asked me where I saw myself in 5 years and I said somewhere along the lines of - a trainer or a windows server admin and they seemed super pleased with that answer. Also they offered me another pay bump so I said gently caress it and took it. Having zero change prospects in my current job is just killing my soul. I can only write so much user assistance documentation every day. Plus a year back my boss told me straight up to not bother to apply to a higher position with in our group and it killed all respect that I had for her. All my coworkers were pissed because i'm the person everyone else turns to for assistance as it is.
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Jul 25, 2014 00:30
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The 3-year mark is about when burnout started hitting me hardest in my last call center job. If you got a govt job before, you can get one again. So if you're offered better pay, there's no reason not to give the private sector a chance. Just don't burn any bridges on your way out the door. Provide 2 weeks notice and work it (unless they walk you out the door). If you get an exit interview, make sure you'll be marked as "eligible for rehire." A small amount of constructive criticism would be ok. But don't point out all your boss's flaws. Don't criticize the job duties or the lack of upward mobility or how lovely morale is. Aim for compliment sandwiches. Smile a lot. And congrats! I moved from one call center to another, and it was worth it just to shake things up, dust off the cobwebs, and challenge myself (even if only a little). I even took a dollar/hour paycut and still think it was worth it. 14 months in and I'm starting to get sick of the repetition, but I'm glad I made the switch. And the 3% raise I got almost canceled out the paycut.
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Jul 25, 2014 03:09
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3 years in a call center!!?! Omg. I did 16 months between two, I can never do another day. That poo poo is hell. Get out now. Coming up on 2yrs of phone freedom in 2wks!
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Jul 25, 2014 06:13
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At the end of a cs training session we were asked to come up with a team mission statement about our great cs. The look of confusion and concern I got when I said I didnt buy into the kool aid of motivationals and manager speak... I hate that it's not enough to do a good job, only 2 months in and nearly perfect quality scores (4 100s, 98, 92). Just let me work quietly and happily, drop the bullshit cult mentality of workplace culture.
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Jul 25, 2014 08:23
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Tigntink posted:Has anyone ever worked in an internal employee call center for a major luxury retailer? I currently work as internal IT support for a government agency and I put out some feelers for a new job and i've been pounced on pretty hard. They seem to be courting me pretty aggressively and even offering me more money as I hm and haw. an internal call centre is insanely different from anything in this thread. It will be more like your government job.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:18
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This one services 70,000 employees vs my current which services about 1,500. It sounded like they actually measured call handle times which is something my current job doesn't bother doing so I was figuring more in the traditional call center realm. *edit* Super glad i'm leaving. We're a weird branch of regional government that gets bonuses and such and it turns out our new director is personally loving our team out any sort of bonuses or high ratings. Despite having a 98% 5/5* rating with our users. silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 16:33
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Anyone here ever worked for Sitel, or know someone who has? Looks like they offer work-from-home in my state, and also have a call center in the town I'm moving to. Just wondering how terrible it is compared to other places.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:26
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martyrdumb posted:Anyone here ever worked for Sitel, or know someone who has? Looks like they offer work-from-home in my state, and also have a call center in the town I'm moving to. Just wondering how terrible it is compared to other places. Yes, don't do it unless you really have too.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:01
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I don't have to. But Sitel would be a lot closer to where I'm moving than my current job. I'm wondering if it's a better option than a 90-minute daily commute in a very snowy region. Do you have any specific stories?
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Jul 28, 2014 20:29
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I mean its gonna be the same as any other call center. For what its worth the work at home agents at my Sitel are pretty content.
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Jul 30, 2014 06:59
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Finished phase 1 of training yesterday and took a live call test. Had a bit of troubles but for the most part they went really well. I need to speak slower, for sure. Starting ABAY tomorrow, so nervous.
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Jul 31, 2014 15:36
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I'm in a sales/service/data entry department right now, so I get to do a lot of office admin and calling out, but I guess in the fall I'll get transferred to pure inbound in-the-poo poo department (new claims), however, this place has pretty easy to get work from home, so I think I might ask for it and give it a whirl. I have reservations about it, but I feel like they'll be moot, especially when Chicago area winters start up and I don't have to drive in, holy god gently caress yeah.
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Aug 3, 2014 01:08
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You know, if it hadn't been for the fact that I worked for Time Warner for 2.5 years, and knew how lovely the system is (and how it works), I'd probably be having a stress-induced heart attack right now. The only guy I cussed at was Business class and it was a "Why the gently caress am I at your department" comment. I spent 2 hours, 3 separate call ins (4 counting the corporate call), and about 12 total transfers during that time. I was always calling about billing or customer solutions (Retention). I hit Intelligent home (Their security system department), Business Class, Customer Care (which should handle billing), Billing, retention, and their outsourced customer care multiple times. All of this to find out a work order that was supposed to go into effect last month didn't. I finally ended up not having to pay in August, and a $14 credit on top of that for September. I would almost feel sorry for the front line guys but god some of them are complete fuckups (And liars! "I'll make sure to tell them what's going on!"). So a rant from the other side.
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Aug 6, 2014 07:06
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I'm really surprised you didn't call in direct to your old department and ask to be transferred.
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Aug 6, 2014 09:26
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Sub Rosa posted:I'm really surprised you didn't call in direct to your old department and ask to be transferred. Didn't have your digits and the code. Though I think retention did transfer me out once. Then again, as much as you are the dumping grounds for everyone else, you shouldn't be my personal switchboard. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to deal with this until next year.
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Aug 7, 2014 15:13
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