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When I worked in a call center, I will never forget the moment I had something particularly bad for lunch and having to rush to the toilet to throw up. Was there barely a few minutes before my mobile rang and it was my boss calling to yell at me for taking too long. When I tried to explain between gasped breaths he just said "Hurry the hell up, we've got calls waiting."
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Jan 20, 2022 18:03
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Prole posted:Been here a week now. Want to say thanks for welcoming me, even if you did all think I was a spy or a banned user at first. Totally understandable given the way I barged in, and no biggy I hope. Good in here, init?! Here's to the future. I'd take it as a compliment - it's unusual to have someone join who's got their finger so much on the pulse and in tune with the thread right from the off.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:06
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Call centre work is truly awful. We should bring back national service - 6 months contact centre, 6 months retail, 6 months hospitality. 18 months of having people shout at you for things completely out of your control would really mellow out a lot of the country.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:08
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I appreciate cancelling a call is gross misconduct in most places. And if she had done so to share memes or make a personal call then yeah. I wouldn't want to risk my job either. But given the choice between making GBS threads myself at work or having to explain to my manager why I had to immediately cancel the call, I'd take the latter. The issue here is the workplace authoritarianism in call centres particularly. But... Maybe I'm being too mean?
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Jan 20, 2022 18:10
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Prole posted:When I worked in a call centre a while ago, a woman I worked with (she was an arsehole) got stuck on a call and poo poo herself at her desk. She finished the call, packed her things, logged out and never came back. It's probably still talked about, that. Jesus. I'd just drop the call, and have done many times. It might be a disciplinable offence but no call centre has paid me even close to enough to consider making GBS threads myself. Honestly, what I'd probably do if I was that desperate would be to say I was transferring them to a different department, ring up our line & dumb them in the queue
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Jan 20, 2022 18:11
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I thought men pissing all over each other was normal rugby club behaviour.Reveilled posted:I am convinced that 4711 is the yet-to-be rediscovered fragrance of young milennials and Gen Z. It's got an inherent authenticity by being one of the original 18th-century fragrances from Koln that actually gave the term "cologne" to perfumery, it looks like it should be a very high class designer product but is actually cheap as dirt, and is a non-binary unisex fragrance with both herbal, citrus, and floral notes. Works as a cologne and as a room freshener, if you decant it to a spray bottle. We used to use 4711 all the time in the 70s. Gallons of the stuff.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:13
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forkboy84 posted:Honestly, what I'd probably do if I was that desperate would be to say I was transferring them to a different department, ring up our line & dumb them in the queue I never worked in a call centre, but I did work a helpdesk for a few years and have done almost exactly this.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:15
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Prole posted:I appreciate cancelling a call is gross misconduct in most places. And if she had done so to share memes or make a personal call then yeah. I wouldn't want to risk my job either. But given the choice between making GBS threads myself at work or having to explain to my manager why I had to immediately cancel the call, I'd take the latter. The issue here is the workplace authoritarianism in call centres particularly. But... Maybe I'm being too mean? Fear of unemployment and precarious work can break your brain.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:16
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Prole posted:I appreciate cancelling a call is gross misconduct in most places. And if she had done so to share memes or make a personal call then yeah. I wouldn't want to risk my job either. But given the choice between making GBS threads myself at work or having to explain to my manager why I had to immediately cancel the call, I'd take the latter. The issue here is the workplace authoritarianism in call centres particularly. But... Maybe I'm being too mean? Yes you are. Just because you're big and tough enough to do that doesn't mean that she was. You're being really judgemental towards someone who was almost certainly really afraid of losing her job/getting in trouble. You're punching down, even as you accurately diagnose the real problem, which is workplace authoritarianism.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:26
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forkboy84 posted:Jesus. I'd just drop the call, and have done many times. It might be a disciplinable offence but no call centre has paid me even close to enough to consider making GBS threads myself. Umbra Dubium posted:I never worked in a call centre, but I did work a helpdesk for a few years and have done almost exactly this. I worked in Sitel for a few years, a Call Centre for Call Centres. It had one massive one room, could hold conventions, and there were several companies all in it having their customer support done for them. For example there was British Telecom, another Lexmark, I think Canon, as well as a few others. And each had their own rules and computers. I think it was Lexmark where you had to be on call all the time no matter what, no excuses other than death. While at British Telecom they would be watching Family Guy or South Park and lazing about. Worst thing ever happened was some guy was caught masturbating in the cubicles, and he couldn't keep it 'silent'.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:31
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When I was 18 I worked in a call centre in this huge open plan office. Thankfully I was one of the guys who did the back office stuff - mostly just data entry really. I have no idea how I stayed in that job for the 6 months or so I had it because honest to got I just took the absolute piss, dicking around with one of my colleagues playing cards etc, sometimes I'd even stand up, pretend I needed to go see HR about some made up thing to do with my contract, and sit in the break room playing minesweeper for half an hour, mid-shift. The bosses were constantly on my case for my attitude but, being 18, I didn't much give a poo poo, but to this day I wonder how I didn't get the sack. Looking back it seems extra cruel because we sat opposite people who were working the phones and they had to watch us do the absolute bare minimum every single day while being worked to the bone. A bunch of the sales guys did at least get commission on top of their standard wages. There were rumours that someone previously had been called outright by someone from the local NHS trust to secure phone/internet for the whole region and ended up getting an absolute fortune in commission, making the company change their policy so it wasn't written formally into the contract. Maybe it happened, but it definitely sounds like one of those urban legends you get flying around workplaces, like the kid who leaned too far back in his chair at ever school and cracked his head open like an egg when he fell. At least the sales guys got something for their trouble though. The poor tech support people, man they looked miserable.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:32
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Barry Foster posted:Yes you are. You're right. Apologies.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:35
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Prole posted:You're right. Apologies. drat Pissflaps, you're only back a week and the mask is already slipping. Just kidding
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Jan 20, 2022 18:38
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Reveilled posted:I am convinced that 4711 is the yet-to-be rediscovered fragrance of young milennials and Gen Z. It's got an inherent authenticity by being one of the original 18th-century fragrances from Koln that actually gave the term "cologne" to perfumery, it looks like it should be a very high class designer product but is actually cheap as dirt, and is a non-binary unisex fragrance with both herbal, citrus, and floral notes. Works as a cologne and as a room freshener, if you decant it to a spray bottle. Seconding this. 4711 is my everyday fragrance because it's totally unisex, it lasts for ages, and it smells like it costs 4 times as much as it actually does. I've had plenty of compliments on it, as a bonus. Also a solid conversation piece that apparently U-boats would go through gallons of the stuff because the hygiene situation was so bad they'd just cover it all with 4711. Gyro Zeppeli fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 18:50
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Failed Imagineer posted:drat Pissflaps, you're only back a week and the mask is already slipping. lol if you think pissflaps would ever apologise for anything
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Jan 20, 2022 18:52
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All perfume gives me a headache and most of it smells like chemical plant runoff anyway. Will stick to sanex roll ons.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:55
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At the last call centre I worked at I accidentally logged every interaction twice. This showed up on the system as me having done about twice as many interactions as anyone else, and therefore being golden in the manager's eyes. I didn't even realise I was doing it until after about 2 months, the system was weird, but I kept doing it because lol. Would recommend this if anyone else has a similarly stupid system and boss
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Jan 20, 2022 18:58
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Some guy elsewhere posted:Did No10 really believe they could piss all over Wragg and he'd just lie down and take it or something?
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Jan 20, 2022 19:00
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OwlFancier posted:All perfume gives me a headache and most of it smells like chemical plant runoff anyway.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:12
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Paperhouse posted:At the last call centre I worked at I accidentally logged every interaction twice. This showed up on the system as me having done about twice as many interactions as anyone else, and therefore being golden in the manager's eyes. I didn't even realise I was doing it until after about 2 months, the system was weird, but I kept doing it because lol. Would recommend this if anyone else has a similarly stupid system and boss Ah that reminds me. My call centre had a competition where the one what closed the most calls would get 500 euros prize. So a guy just answered calls, insta closed without talking to them, and sent a 'we couldn't talk to you please contact us again if you still have a problem' for everything. He won the prize, he was going to quit after getting it, but the company then found out and just deducted it from his leaving pay.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:15
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 https://news.sky.com/story/doomsday-clock-stays-at-100-seconds-to-midnight-and-remains-closest-to-apocalypse-ever-12521110 
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Jan 20, 2022 19:30
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I'm pleased the support roles I've worked have mostly been chill apart from the occasional arsehole[1]. I remember one guy who used to loudly fake a bad connection when he couldn't be bothered with fixing something[2] who never understood why the caller kept coming back to him. It took him almost a month until he realised that (in this small office, with only 4 or 5 co-workers) we all could hear him going "HELLO? HELLO? NO I CAN'T HEAR YOU" then dropping the call and we'd all just hit the "go on break" button as soon as we heard it, leaving him the only one in the pool. When he *did* work it out he'd try logging off too but the call system wouldn't let you go on break if you were the only person in the pool - so he opened a complaint with HR that we were all bullying him. They pulled up his logs and offered him a new headset as he seemed to be having problems with his, and so he quit instead. Weird thing is about once every two years he contacts me on Facebook asking me for a reference despite the fact I was never actually his manager, presumably because he's worried that his actual manager would give him an honest reference, but it's not like I'd give him a better one. He also every once in a while contacts me to ask me to ask other former colleagues (normally female ones) to accept his friend requests. I have never answered one of his messages but they still come in. [1] As a former colleague lurks here I'll go ahead and say sometimes *I* was that arsehole, but generally of the "tricking colleagues into opening goatse" variety rather than anything more malicious. [2] The weird thing is it wasn't even a laziness thing as far as he could tell. We all knew who all the bad customers were[3] (again, small company) and the bad calls (I will never, ever, ever, ever own an Apple product having had to support getting System 7 machines onto the internet), and it never seemed to be one of those, he'd just decide, half way through a pretty basic getting someone online call, that he'd had enough. He just thought his amazing talents were wasted there, as could be seen when he left that little dialup ISP and... got a job at PC World. [3] Personal favourite was the guy convinced NATO were stopping him reading certain web pages, if the poor bugger on the phone didn't look at his notes it could take them *hours* to diagnose that he'd the default text colour in IE to grey and so when he visited this one particular website, with a grey background...
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Jan 20, 2022 19:45
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kecske posted:
We're hosed in a couple of months when the clocks go forward then.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:47
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Loonytoad Quack posted:Just leaving this here... obviously this is 100% fact but where did this list get leaked from and is there any proof it is real?
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Jan 20, 2022 19:57
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I used to work for a bank taking calls and the old, "I'll just put you on hold a second while I look into this," followed by, "Oh no! I hit the 'end call' button instead of the 'hold' button! They're right next to each other, easy mistake to make!" routine was used by pretty much everyone. Easy mistake to make. Remember the old Master Systems where the pause and reset buttons were next to each other on the console? My brother kicked the poo poo out of me when I hosed up opening the pause menu for him when he was really far into Alex Kidd one time.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:58
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If it started in 75 years ago at 7 minutes (420 seconds  ) to midnight and is currently at 100 seconds to midnight, then each second is like 2.8 months, putting the apocalypse at least 23 years away.Which maps well with the dead earth by 2050 doomer crew 
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Jan 20, 2022 20:06
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Why does the doomsday clock have those giant circles for markers? It's loving impossible to tell the time on that
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Jan 20, 2022 20:07
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Weird thing is about once every two years he contacts me on Facebook asking me for a reference despite the fact I was never actually his manager, presumably because he's worried that his actual manager would give him an honest reference, but it's not like I'd give him a better one. I'd just give him one honestly, gently caress employers. Speaking of which if anyone needs a reference I'm more than happy to pretend I used to be your boss and sing your praises to high heaven. We should normalise this behavior.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:07
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ThomasPaine posted:I'd just give him one honestly, gently caress employers. Speaking of which if anyone needs a reference I'm more than happy to pretend I used to be your boss and sing your praises to high heaven. We should normalise this behavior. It's possible he's asking me because I have quite merrily given out references as a former team leader at that place to people that were never in my team (and in one case had never even worked in my department) but only to people who were sound, and he definitely wasn't.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:22
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goddamnedtwisto posted:It's possible he's asking me because I have quite merrily given out references as a former team leader at that place to people that were never in my team (and in one case had never even worked in my department) but only to people who were sound, and he definitely wasn't. Can I ask you (or anyone) what it's like to be a team leader? Asking because I was in the position to apply for a similar sort of role, though in a different field (senior teacher at an English teaching centre). I didn't because I hate the idea of managing and leading people, and would prefer to just do my job as painlessly as possible. But in my working life most of my team leaders or seniors have basically seemed to do not a lot more than what I was already doing, and weren't always good at managing people either
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Jan 20, 2022 20:29
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Paperhouse posted:Can I ask you (or anyone) what it's like to be a team leader? I was TL at one job I did (another call center) and tbh it's a grift. I had an extra £50 a week, guaranteed full bonus, and didn't do much more than before. In fact, I did less because I was rarely taking calls. It was 70% watching the performance charts and call availability and shouting "everyone on please" when it got busy. Easiest money I ever made...
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Jan 20, 2022 20:34
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ThomasPaine posted:I'd just give him one honestly, gently caress employers.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:36
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I was a call center for an insurance company and fortunately only worked service so just doing renewals/cancellations/changes. It was all inbound and people were generally just calling up to pay something they already needed so not much aggro. Then about a year in they came up with an idea of getting the service people trained on outbound sales (and vice versa) and I got the gently caress out of there ASAP.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:37
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Managing + leading people is cool and good if you take it very seriously and have empathy as your first principle. Often the people most suited to being good leaders really don't want to do it because it seems daunting and a lot of responsibility.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:39
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jiggerypokery posted:Managing + leading people is cool and good if you take it very seriously and have empathy as your first principle. Often the people most suited to being good leaders really don't want to do it because it seems daunting and a lot of responsibility. In my past jobs, Team Leader is usually a nothing position the Managers give out to take the load off themselves. There certainly wasn't much "leading" involved.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:43
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i was team leader at toilet cleaning. They gave me a radio and I didn't have to clean any actual toilets. I would strongly recommend being the team leader in this field
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Jan 20, 2022 20:44
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Re references: In my working life, I have spanned late 80s - mid 2000s with two jobs in large, national organisations (and a 3 year spell outside of those while I was doing my PhD). It is now impossible to get references from either of those because they destroy all records after 5 years in one case and 6 years in the other. I didn't find this out until I started working voluntarily with the charity I'm now employed by and gave the latest one of those (my last full time job before I naffed off abroad for 8 years) as a reference using the contact details that particular organisation had told me to use, and they replied to the charity that they needed my 'wet signature' and permission before they could comply which totally flummoxed by now boss. Anyway, I wrote to said organisation giving a permission only for them to reply back saying 'we don't give references for people who left more than 6 years ago because we don't keep records from back then' (and some old waffle about data protection). So I was a bit stuck. Given that I had put the organisation down as a reference on several applications which I would have expected at least an interview from and heard nothing, I think they must have taken 'not able to supply' as a bad thing instead of a data thing. I had to ask a former colleague I was still in touch with to give one. Fortunately, having done a lot of work in a voluntary capacity with my local CLP (data analysis, branch secretary, social media officer etc), also gave me a decent reference. Nearly every company I have ever worked for has either ceased to exist or managers are retired or dead, so returning to the workplace after several years' absence and 30 years of your working life being unreferenceable is a mighty big pain so I cannot blame anyone using fake referees!
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Jan 20, 2022 20:51
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Every time I've worked in a TL/Supervisory role, I've ended up feuding with higher management and getting in the poo poo for being an advocate for my people. Whether it was a company with a management structure a whole single layer deep above me, or a huge multinational (G4S. They're cunts) I mention this because if you /do/ have empathy, you'll almost certainly end up going down the same path.
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Jan 20, 2022 21:09
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Paperhouse posted:Can I ask you (or anyone) what it's like to be a team leader? This is a difficult question to answer because fundamentally your first point is correct. Team leaders are the bottom rung of management in that they often have the same workload as the team members with the additional tasks of 'managing' those people too. And I put that in quotes because you're often not doing much more than typing KPI's into a spreadsheet and being the first escalation if its a customer service/tech support role. But that can add up to a considerable increase in the normal day to day tasks if the team is 4 people and is often not being reflected in the salary increase. It also depends on the industry and company culture. A call center is going to be ruthless and a team leader will spend most of their day picking fault, whereas an office manager type person whos in charge of a few admin people will have a much different dynamic. Ultimately it depends on what you want to get out of it. If you see yourself being at a company for a good number of years then a team leader role might suit as its just a natural progression and you might end up going higher up in the chain.
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Jan 20, 2022 21:28
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