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man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
The old thread was closed either because it was getting long in the tooth, or because the mods decided they didn't want to hear our whining anymore (if it was the latter, I supposed this thread is doomed from the start). I decided to start a new one because I believe it is vitally important to the mental health of all call center goons, and the physical well-being of anyone within 100 miles of all call center goons, that they have somewhere to vent their frustration and anger.

Most of us have heard it all. Threats to our person, our jobs, our friends, families and pets; Insults hurled by middle-aged professionals that would make the most foul-mouthed bastards on earth blush; People masturbating; People sobbing uncontrollably because a voicemail or text message from a dearly-depart got erased... Oh we've heard it all.

There's nothing quite like getting off work at one in the morning on a Saturday night, and the last words uttered to you by any human being before you head home to try to salvage some remnant of humanity within yourself are "you know what [name]? gently caress. You."

There's nothing quite like someone telling you your career will be over if you don't wake your boss up in the middle of the night to make them speak to an angry customer.

There's nothing quite like ever-escalating goals for your bonus, or if you're really lucky, ever-escalating goals just to not get poo poo-canned (our tier one now need a 119% quality score to qualify for our top tier bonus).

A lucky few from the last thread were even given an opportunity to travel to India to train their replacements, only to find their jobs were gone by the time they returned home.

I've spent nearly two hours programming a voicemail retrieval number with a customer. I've spent an hour setting up a gmail account with a customer. I've spent 20 minutes looking for a single icon on a customer's desktop only to have them throw their phone in frustration, telling me "You don't talk to me like that! I'm a surgeon god dammit!"

That last one made me think.

So share your horrible tales of the hell on earth that is the call center. Or just sit back and enjoy our pain. There's usually plenty to go around.

man thats gross fucked around with this message at 01:58 on May 27, 2010

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G-Prime
Apr 30, 2003

Baby, when it's love,
if it's not rough it isn't fun.
The OP covers a very important burden of call center life, the customers, very nicely. It mentions the perils of management's fiat as well. However, it doesn't cover the ever present killer in the shadows, your fellow employees. Never in a job before this have I seen an employee so ready to throw a co-worker under the bus to save their own skin. More importantly, I have also never seen people lie so much to customers about what we can do to fix their problems, with the intent of shoving it off on the next poor bastard that gets a call from this person.

My company is a cable provider. We partner with a large, nationwide phone company to offer a hybrid VoIP service. Because of this, there are constant delays in communication for phone related issues. Normal turnaround time for anything we send to them is two business days, no matter how small. And there are glitches in our automated communications systems that talk to theirs which can cause catastrophic problems for our customers.

A week ago, one of my customers was mistakenly disconnected from her phone service. Her bill had gone past due, she paid it, the account was taken out of a non-payment status, and everything looked fine. 10 days later, on the date she was scheduled for a disconnect which had been canceled when she paid that bill, her phone mysteriously goes dead. The automated system had never informed the phone partner that the disconnect was to be canceled.

The customer calls up, confused. The rep who gets the call claims there's an outage in the area (their services were all up and running, but the VoIP wasn't being passed a dial tone, even though it was connecting to us just fine and perfectly readable in the internal tools), tells the customer to call back the next day if it's still not working. She calls back the next day. This rep realizes that the number has been disconnected. She tells the customer that we'll have her reconnected within 24 hours. Did I mention that this second call was placed on a Saturday, and that our partner only counts standard M-F as business days? Nope, I didn't. And my co-worker didn't either. Never mind that the timeframe quoted was completely wrong anyway.

Sunday comes and goes, Monday rolls around. 7pm, my last call of the day comes in. She gave us the benefit of the doubt and waited patiently for an extra day. She's audibly agitated, but trying very hard to be pleasant with me. She does a great job of maintaining composure until I explain that she was outright lied to, and apologized. At which point she musters up about 10 seconds of complete rage before breaking into hysterical sobbing. She eventually explains that her husband is a soldier in Iraq and they talk daily so she knows he's alright over there, and that this is the first time they've been out of communication for more than a day since he was deployed. At this point, she's been 96 hours without a phone, and is terrified for him. 5 minutes of tears and apologies later, I've made it clear to her that I would love to put in an order to get her reactivation moved up, but it's impossible because changing the date will cause the order to fail and leave her without service longer. She eventually gets her composure mostly back, and between sniffles thanks me for being honest and hangs up.

Frankly, I hope she disconnects our service, because nobody should have to be put through that kind of mess just because two assholes lied.

Those of you who don't work in a call center environment, count your blessings. Sitting at a desk answering phones is a cushy job, in and of itself. But the reality of it is that you're in the trenches. 40% of customers treat you like you're an animal, not even worthy of basic human decency. Management constantly imposes tighter goals and restrictions on how you do your job, increasing stress levels drastically. Your backstabbing co-workers aren't in it to help the customer, they just want to make a buck by taking as little effort as possible, while the 5% of employees who are genuinely dedicated to actually being helpful bear the burden of honesty.

People have nervous breakdowns because of this poo poo.

SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL
Feb 21, 2006

Holy Moly! DARKSEID IS!

I work for a power company. We cannot deny service to anyone, therefore I speak to the poo poo of the Earth. Sure, some people just genuinely like speaking to a person on the phone, do their thing and get off with minimum hassle and are even nice sometimes. But the majority of our services are available online or via speech recognition by phone. Most people getting transferred to me have no listening or direction-following skill and need their hand held. Ever see a two-year-old pull that stunt where they throw a tantrum and writhe yet mom doesn't let go because she's not having that poo poo? I tried that stunt at two and dislocated my shoulder because I was a whiny brat. My job is to put peoples' shoulders back into place - it's their call how painful it's going to be.

For the handful of people who feel they need to critique my/my company's technique on putting that shoulder back? I'm going to enjoy your pain because gently caress you if you think you'll cause me any. Don't tell me about your children, your asthma, your refrigerated medication. Don't scream and speak down to me. Don't take my professionalism as speaking down to you just because you could barely rub two brain cells together to make this drat phone call. Those truly in need don't behave that way, they understand paying a bill is their responsibility and loving find a way to ensure they keep the power on if that means canceling cable or eating soup for a week. The people that really need me are sorrowful, but respectful.

But you dicks? You fuckwads getting power shut off because you can't handle your life, because you think electricity is a right? You morons who steel power and risk your lives for a few hundred dollars and LIE TO ME about doing it? Count your blessings I can't summon Reddy Kilowatt from the bowels of Middle America to personally ride the lines to fry you where you stand. I don't mean the pothead who forgets a bill once in a while, or the single parent who gets dicked over by unemployment not sending a check on time. I mean the entitled who do this CONSTANTLY. That's generally who I have to speak to.

Had a woman ask how to put service in her name because her husband was going to prison for molesting their 14-year old daughter.

Call centers will deepen your intolerance of the human race.

Dick Trauma
Nov 30, 2007

God damn it, you've got to be kind.
A few years of working for TeleTech as a supervisor at their HQ was more than enough to cement the fact that call centers are hell for both the employees and the callers.

The only good thing that came out of it was enough stock options from the IPO to buy a nice camera before their value dropped like a loving rock.

Crimsonjewfro
Jul 12, 2008

I can't even afford an avatar
A friend of mine just quit her call center job. She had stayed there for nearly 2 years. Before quitting, she was this close to having a nervous breakdown. She'd run screaming out of the call center and crying outside the building, with her supervisor having to go calm her down... on a nearly daily basis.

It really shocks me how she managed to handle it for so long.

Aerofallosov
Oct 3, 2007

Friend to Fishes. Just keep swimming.
Yup. I've seen records of calls that were basically 5 apathetic weasels before me punting a call as much as they can. The kicker? One of the guys notorious (Or at least - I figured out he was because he would transfer a call because he could) for it got prizes for such low call times. Or they lie to get someone to shut up. Or make promises that will never happen and guess who catches it next. Yeah. Or when they refuse to use the translator service and punt people with accents. Then by the time I get them, I have an angry, abused and frustrated caller. I swear I get the most Spanish/non-english calls just because I'm the one person who doesn't hang up on them. Oh - and the translator service shows up as an outgoing call so whenever I use it, I invariably get an angry supervisor going WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THAT OUTBOUND CALL?? Uh, helping a non-English caller? Oh.

Or they're outright incompetent. Like Pervoman, the toxic creep who is like 60+ and can't type at all (He SLAMS the keyboard with his hands, has gotten lectures on personal hygiene, been warned not to leer at co-workers and flirts with anyone who looks at him. I'm waiting for my poster from Amazon so I can block him off too). Yes, we even have convicted child molesters. And on top of that, we have people coming in stoned, drunk or like the case of Furious Skank, whiny and generally rude.

Even more fun is when thanks to their incompetence or general apathy the caller's computer/license/whatever is damaged or destroyed. We had one guy erase a woman's hard drive out of spite. Yes, she was stupid, annoying, entitled and angry - but be the bigger person. And y'know, don't erase all the pictures she ever had of her family. Or a technician steal a woman's modem because she only spoke Mandarin Chinese. Oh, I could go on.

Now, the call centre has mold something fierce, is notorious for smokers all over and periodically has fires break out. I don't even get a desk. I have a little station with transparent walls. We can't eat at our desks anymore since people would bury wrappers and leave trash there.

On top of that, let's add in that yes - most customers will treat you like an animal or a machine. If someone talked to someone in person like they do us? They'd get thrown out of the store or arrested. But since it's on the phone or a chat, it's okay to abuse us I guess. I realize some of us are lying, apathetic weasels but those of us - ESPECIALLY - those of us in an outsourced call centre really do have little power or tools. :/

But please. Be kind to the phone monkeys. Not all of us are bad.

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004

SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:

For the handful of people who feel they need to critique my/my company's technique on putting that shoulder back? I'm going to enjoy your pain because gently caress you if you think you'll cause me any. Don't tell me about your children, your asthma, your refrigerated medication. Don't scream and speak down to me. Don't take my professionalism as speaking down to you just because you could barely rub two brain cells together to make this drat phone call. Those truly in need don't behave that way, they understand paying a bill is their responsibility and loving find a way to ensure they keep the power on if that means canceling cable or eating soup for a week. The people that really need me are sorrowful, but respectful.

But you dicks? You fuckwads getting power shut off because you can't handle your life, because you think electricity is a right? You morons who steel power and risk your lives for a few hundred dollars and LIE TO ME about doing it? Count your blessings I can't summon Reddy Kilowatt from the bowels of Middle America to personally ride the lines to fry you where you stand.

This was particularly awesome.

Honestly, when people are nice to me I bend over backwards to help them. Hell, nice isn't even the word for it. Just don't be particularly horrible and you're already a step ahead of the competition.

I'll ask ten different managers until one of them gives you what you want. If someone gets in my face I'll ask one manager, one time, and I'll usually phrase my question in such a way as to induce a negative response.

"We don't swap phones for [this-or-that] reason, do we?"

Gets them every time.

Jailbrekr
Apr 8, 2002
A TOWN LEVELED BY AN EXPLOSION? DOZENS LIKELY KILLED? OH GOD LET ME SEE THAT SWEET VIDEO OH MY GOD I'M CUMMING
:fap::fap::fap::fap::fap::fap::fap::fap:
I use to support a call center which had a high number of languages spoken (I seem to recall 17 distinct languages we supported). I truly felt sorry for the ones who had to work the phones, because it was hell. Everything was monitored, and everything was tracked. They had to hit a separate button for any sort of break they took (bathroom in, bathroom out, break in, break out etc). We had them heavily proxied and I was the poor SOB who had to scan the logs for porn, and I even put in a place a desktop monitoring tool so their desktops could be randomly monitored for "quality control".

Now, having said that, we did have our share of total morons. You'd think that if someone thought they were having their internet traffic monitored, they wouldn't surf for hard core gay porn or create a disposable yahoo email account to send a racist and verbally violent email to a pissed off customer. When you're paying close to minimum wage, you don't exactly attract the smart ones.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽

Dick Trauma posted:

A few years of working for TeleTech as a supervisor at their HQ was more than enough to cement the fact that call centers are hell for both the employees and the callers.

The only good thing that came out of it was enough stock options from the IPO to buy a nice camera before their value dropped like a loving rock.

Teletech is complete poo poo and I hate that company so bad. I feel that 80% of my job is correcting issues that are caused by teletech. They also like to transfer customers without letting the customer know, so that when I get the customer they are really confused and always ask where the last guy is that put them on hold.

They also like to transfer calls to my department when the customer asks for a supervisor instead of getting their own. My company isn't great, but I hate hate hate teletech with a passion.

Also, what do you do as a supervisor that makes your employees scared to ask you questions, so they call my department to ask questions. Dumb questions like directions to a local office, or when a promo expires, or how to reapply promo codes to an account. gently caress you teletech, you are a terrible company.

I don't know if you were ever on the floor, but we signed our calls with tcg/agent name/time in case you wanted to know who I worked for.

Billy the Mountain
Feb 3, 2005

I used to be TheRealLuquado

me: :saddowns:
Ticket Customer, a Mrs. Bernstein, wife of Doctor Berstien of Park Avenue: :supaburn:

:saddowns: How can I help you today, Mrs. Bernstein (she had given me her name and I had looked her up in our database)

:supaburn: I want 3 seats center orchestra Row F, on the aisle.

:saddowns: I'm sorry mam'm, we are completely full in that section, the best I have is in Mid Mezz.

:supaburn: That is not acceptable. I have been seeing this Ballet Company every year in those seats since 1964, thos are MY seats. How can they
possibly be taken?

:saddowns: Well, the tickets went on sale 4 months ago, and this performance is tomorrow night and it is a very popular...

:supaburn: NO NO NO, Absolutely not, I refuse to accept that, you give me those seats right now, I DEMAND IT.

:saddowns: Maam, we can't do that, they are already sold to other people.

:supaburn: Well MOVE THEM. I WANT MY SEATS GOD DAMNIT

:saddowns: Maam, if you continue to use that kind of language I will have to end this call.

:supaburn: YOU THIEVING friend of the family oval office gently caress YOU gently caress YOU YOU HAVE RUINED THIS FOR ME YOU friend of the family friend of the family oval office!!!! -click-

I am a white male.

Billy the Mountain fucked around with this message at 04:00 on May 27, 2010

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
alright, now that my rant is over I'd like to post a call that I had the other day



:( how may I help you?

:) Hi, I would like to remove the mlb package from my account

:( may I ask the reason why?

:)well first of all there are only 4 channels in hd. 2nd, the same teams play each other every day. There are also no good teams playing each other.

:( ???????

ok, who in the world would order a $200 package and not understand how baseball works? How is that a valid complaint to remove it? I was so baffled by this guy and his reason to remove it, pure amazement.

Too bad I couldn't remove it for him though, as it is a ppv event. Once those are ordered there is no going back. I honestly laughed at him at this point and told him that it sounds like he needs to talk to mlb. He replied that he will be calling them next, and hung up.

Jose Mengelez
Sep 11, 2001

by Azathoth
I get called in by the manager, he presents me an envelope with £100 in it and congratulates me on generating the most solid leads that week. I return to my desk and crack open a celebratory red bull and start making more calls.

Less than 5 minutes later I get called in by my team leader who berates me for not generating enough leads and gives me an official warning (three of these and you're fired) I laugh my rear end off and quit.

Two years later the premises burn down and some clown tries to shoot the owner, karma.

Three Olives
Apr 10, 2005

What if Hitler invented the BMW i3 Subcompact Electric car?
Sometimes when I get a super helpful person in a call center I ask to speak to their manager to give them a kudos. Am I wasting everyone's time or is that actually the good thing that I think it is?

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽

Three Olives posted:

Sometimes when I get a super helpful person in a call center I ask to speak to their manager to give them a kudos. Am I wasting everyone's time or is that actually the good thing that I think it is?

It is very good. Not only does it put a smile on the agents face and make them feel good, but usually the agent will get something for it. Where I work they have a drawing that you get put into for cash.

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004

Harminoff posted:

It is very good. Not only does it put a smile on the agents face and make them feel good, but usually the agent will get something for it. Where I work they have a drawing that you get put into for cash.

Yeah, it's a definite good thing at my centre too. Management will usually forward it to the whole floor and senior management, and I believe it's part of our incentive program now as well.

That said, I seem to recall someone in the last thread saying their management didn't give a poo poo about getting kudos from customers and would just give the agent poo poo because speaking to a supervisor made the handle time for that call go over. :(

Dick Trauma
Nov 30, 2007

God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Harminoff posted:

Teletech is complete poo poo and I hate that company so bad. I feel that 80% of my job is correcting issues that are caused by teletech. They also like to transfer customers without letting the customer know, so that when I get the customer they are really confused and always ask where the last guy is that put them on hold.

I don't know if you were ever on the floor, but we signed our calls with tcg/agent name/time in case you wanted to know who I worked for.

I worked three projects there starting in 1995. I got to see it expand ridiculously fast and how poorly they managed their growth. I'd already done 911 so handling difficult calls was easy for me and I did my best to shield my teams from the worst of the stupidity. It's probably the only place I've worked where they truly didn't give a poo poo about the employees. At the postal call center we had 100% turnover the first year it was open, going through 400 agents at a site meant to staff 400 people. That place was a misery and as management types abandoned it they were replaced by even worse people. I was quite happy to finally leave.

At least it's now really easy for me to handle customer service people when I have to call a call center. Right away I know if they're good or bad, chained to a script, etc. I can be your best or worst caller because I know exactly how things work and how it should be done. :colbert:

angerbot
Mar 23, 2004

plob

Three Olives posted:

Sometimes when I get a super helpful person in a call center I ask to speak to their manager to give them a kudos. Am I wasting everyone's time or is that actually the good thing that I think it is?

When I worked for T-Mobile it meant you had a "world class" call and your supervisor would give you a balloon. Not a helium balloon though. Just a sad balloon sitting on your desk.

You'll never rise higher than that balloon, was the message; and you'll shrivel up and die just as fast.

Gravy Jones
Sep 13, 2003

I am not on your side
Welcome to your new home.

slap me silly
Nov 1, 2009
Grimey Drawer
Why did you bring this poo poo here? Put it in E/N where it will be subject to the Darfur orphan clause.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web
slap me silly, you seem on edge today. Chill out a bit and welcome our new posting friends :cheers:

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
Hi, my name is man thats gross and I'm a technological nanny for the mentally invalid.

slap me silly
Nov 1, 2009
Grimey Drawer
Pleased to meet you, I'm slap me silly and I write snarky things on the internet. Welcome to the party!

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
:toot:

Here's all the things that don't suck about mu job right now.

I'm tier two now, so I only speak to tier one agents, except for the rare supervisor call and cold transfer.

I get a set bonus at the end of the year which is already bigger than what I could make in tier one killing my rear end all day every day, and only goes up based on our group performance.

Our call quality makes some sort of horrible sense and I've had perfect quality scores since I was promoted in February.

I work with a small tight-knit group of people who are nice to each other.

My manager gets poo poo done. If I gently caress up, she'll let me know and how (I don't gently caress up :smuggo:). If someone else fucks up and I eat poo poo because of it, she'll spoon-feed them a fresh dog turd herself if she has to.

Most of the people I speak to on a daily basis are good at their job and just need a second set of eyes to look at a weird problem or need to be reassured of something they already know but aren't 100% sure on.

Those are the things that keep me going. It's an okay job. Not my life's ambition, but it's a living.

Caitlin
Aug 18, 2006

When I die, if there is a heaven, I will spend eternity rolling around with a pile of kittens.
Me and a few other goons (well, at least one or two at this point) work in an outsourced call center. We are, generally, a pretty awesome call center. We only have occasional quotas when the bossman decides to go militant for a few weeks and you don't usually get yelled at unless you did something really loving stupid. That being said, customers can still be the worst people you could ever speak to.

Earlier today I spent an hour teaching someone how to drag and drop and create a new folder on an external hard drive. I had someone demand electrical diagrams of a power supply I have no access to and cannot hand out because his AGP card rarrgh has to run on separate 12v rails rarrgh. I, more often than I would like to admit, have people request to speak to A MAN or SOMEONE EXTREMELY TECHNICAL at which point I have to insist that yes, I am the most senior tech on the floor and I was an overnight supervisor for two years and you can eat a dick and maybe, just maybe, I will transfer you to the other guy so he can come ask me questions about your asinine problem.

There's a few idiots here, there's idiots everywhere, I am not automatically one of them because of my genitalia.

We had a (lady/man?) that would demand to be called SIR (even though it sounded like a woman) because we were sexually discriminating against her/him who flew off the handle at someone for asking her if it said "querying" on a router configuration page and said something to the effect of DID YOU JUST CALL ME QUEER? WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME? I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! WHAT KIND OF HOMOPHOBIC PEOPLE STAFF THIS PLACE, etc etc. The person she/he flew off the handle that was quite homosexual in fact, so mostly he just laughed.

We had the mentally disturbed man who called us with government conspiracy theories - we'd occasionally call his doctor for him because he had gone off of his meds. Hooray!

90% of us are driven to smoke to get away from the phones and in some futile attempt to make us hate callers less.

I have been called "the problem with American customer service" because I wouldn't send a guy a prepaid label for his RMA while screaming at me. I informed him that I was indeed not customer service, however I am technical support. :D

How does cancer prevent you from printing an RMA form? "I can't do that. I have cancer." You can't argue it really because then you'd be a horrible person, but it doesn't make it make any more sense. Simply telling me you don't have a printer would do, but no, the cancer.

I can flesh out any more of these stories, but they're all lovely horrible people. Some people are really very nice and I will help you for as long as I can without screwing over the other techs on my shifts but it always blows my mind how everyone can be such a huge dick and decide they can walk all over me because I work in a call center/am a woman/YOU PUT ME ON HOLD YOU JUST GOOGLED THE ANSWER DIDN'T YOU.

:smith:

I know I have a relatively good working environment relative to a lot of call centers but people are just horrible sometimes. The people who actually give me e-mailed compliments (we generally can't forward you to a supervisor for that, they handle calls too) give me the biggest warm fuzzies. We don't even have an incentive program, I just feel slightly better about my miserable day.

That and sometimes the beer helps.

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004

Captain Stinkybutt posted:

YOU PUT ME ON HOLD YOU JUST GOOGLED THE ANSWER DIDN'T YOU.

Man, I wish someone would say this to me. Maybe I'm lucky nobody has because I'd probably say something like

"Yes, I searched a few of the key words to your problem in google and came up with a solution. It was really easy. A child could do it. Anything else I can do for you?"

And then get poo poo-canned for treating an idiot like an idiot.

Caitlin
Aug 18, 2006

When I die, if there is a heaven, I will spend eternity rolling around with a pile of kittens.
I tell people to check Wikipedia and Google a lot (notably about good descriptions on how RAID arrays work or obscenely strange BIOS settings that nobody can handle) if they want more than a brief description because I am tech support, not an educator on the intricacies of RAID5 versus RAID1+0. Or to go to Google to download things or try to look up things that I cannot strictly tell them to do.

However, I had one guy yell at me for 99:99+ minutes about different ways we could go about trying to rebuild RAID arrays. He had "priceless, invaluable" data (family photos, movies, music) "backed up" (not backed up) on a RAID array he switched the drive order in. I managed to command line map him into the drive and told him to back it up and he spent the next 90+ minutes bitching about how long it would take to back up the data and why can't we do it this way and blah blah blah and how he didn't have the room to do it.

I could have gone about doing this any number of ways, but any configuration changes and I couldn't possibly guarantee that he would be able to recover the data I managed to get him access to. Eventually he capitulated (and if it's that invaluable, go buy another external hard drive - it's lovely but if EVERYTHING ON THAT DRIVE IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY AND INVALUABLE you shouldn't be afraid to plunk down for that). And I was Googling every answer. Hururrururur. And then he called back and got a coworker who essentially told him everything I said all over again.

Turns out none of the RAID arrays could be fixed anyway. :)

P.S. The other for-sure-goon that works here could get away with murder on the phone. "Are you literate? Then you obviously didn't read the manual. And those are just pictures, those aren't even words."

I just sat there going :aaaaa:

And hi-fived him. He never gets in trouble. It's amazing.

Caitlin fucked around with this message at 05:25 on May 29, 2010

Organic Lube User
Apr 15, 2005

angerbotSD posted:

When I worked for T-Mobile it meant you had a "world class" call and your supervisor would give you a balloon. Not a helium balloon though. Just a sad balloon sitting on your desk.

You'll never rise higher than that balloon, was the message; and you'll shrivel up and die just as fast.

Were you T-Mobile Corporate, or a contracted call center?

I worked for a contracted call center for a year before it finally put me into such a depressive state that I simply couldn't go to work anymore. I just stopped showing up. gently caress West Teleservices.

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
Customer complaining he has no service on the Trans-Canada Highway. Says it doesn't matter where he gets on or gets off.

The TCH spans over 5000km.

When I asked the agent to have him to narrow it down, he gave me two different towns which, when I ran a search, I determined were just a hair shy of 500km apart.

:sigh:

Boogabu
Oct 21, 2009
I have nothing but respect for you phone jockies.

I worked phone support for weather.com once... Oh man oh man, some of the stories. So yeah, even if I'm pissed, I grit my teeth and smile over the phone. Being a dick to the people who manage your account can only end badly.

There's been times when that wasn't possible - when I'd be really frustrated and vent a little and swear in general, but never at them, and I always made sure they understood that my frustration wasn't toward them, just their company.



There was the exception of when I called my cable company because our internet kept dropping. The guy said (in a very confident and sure voice) that I should be power cycling my modem on a daily basis. I called him an idiot. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I apologized and helped him not be an idiot anymore.

Lyon
Apr 17, 2003
Wow, this brings me back to collections. We were a 3rd party collections agency for Wachovia, accounts that were overdrawn from 7-30 days, pre-charge off.

My best call, the only one where I ever dropped a witty line, was when I had a guy call in from Connecticut and tell me we were a scam, that he was reporting us to the police/BBB/Wachovia/etc, and then finally told me he was going to come find me and kick my rear end.

I replied with "Well sir, we're in Pennsylvania so if you feel like making the drive just make sure to bring cash or a check to pay off your overdrawn balance."

I work in lead generation now for an IT company and haven't heard one really mean thing in a long time. You get the "Stop calling me" "Take me off your list" or "I intentionally don't answer when you call, just wanted to let you know, bye" and of course we get "Not interested" all the time but no really mean people.

Quotas are similar except instead of getting payments over the phone I now need to set meetings for the outside sales reps. The pay is immensely better and there's an actual career possibly so I'm glad I traded one call center for another.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
Well as you may know the company I work for has been getting lovely pretty fast. Well I found out Thursday that they got bought by another company, and are signing the papers on June 1st. We had a meeting with a guy from corporate, but he couldn't answer any questions. All I do know is that we now get paid for 0 breaks. We also do not get paid for bathroom breaks or any off phone time. . Anyone work for them and can tell me what I'm in for?

Harminoff fucked around with this message at 03:53 on May 23, 2011

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004

Harminoff posted:

... we now get paid for 0 breaks ... Anyone work for them and can tell me what I'm in for?

A bunch of illegal poo poo.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽

man thats gross posted:

A bunch of illegal poo poo.

Most states it isn't required that you are paid for breaks. It's not even required that you are given a break. I don't know why everyone thinks otherwise.

Here is Wisconsin's law on it

quote:

Breaks and Meals

Employees under 18 years of age must receive at least a 30-minute duty free meal period when working a shift greater than 6 hours in duration. Breaks of shorter duration are not required. If an employer provides breaks of less than 30 consecutive minutes in duration, the break time will be counted as work time. Wisconsin law does not require that employers provide brief rest periods, coffee breaks or meal periods for adult employees, although the Department recommends, in Chapter DWD 274.02(2) of the Wisconsin Administrative Code, that employers do so. Employers are encouraged, but not required, to provide breaks of at least 30 minutes in duration at times reasonably close to the usual meal period. Such matters are to be determined directly between the employer and the employee.

Employers must pay employees for "on duty" meal periods. An "on duty" meal period is one where the worker is not provided at least 30 consecutive minutes free from work, or where the worker is not free to leave the employer’s premises. Employers may not deduct from a worker's wages for any time off of less than 30 consecutive minutes.

Though now that we don't get paid for bathroom breaks I feel that every time it gets busy I will just clock out. Not like they are paying me then anyway.

Harminoff fucked around with this message at 04:55 on May 31, 2010

TheBandOffice
Nov 4, 2009

Harminoff posted:

Employers may not deduct from a worker's wages for any time off of less than 30 consecutive minutes.
Requiring you to clock out for restroom breaks sounds illegal to me based on this line.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽

TheBandOffice posted:

Requiring you to clock out for restroom breaks sounds illegal to me based on this line.

Well I just emailed the Labor Standards Bureau. Hopefully you are right.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Harminoff posted:

Well I just emailed the Labor Standards Bureau. Hopefully you are right.

Hot drat, finally some action.

:munch:

Please let this turn into an A/T about "how I got the labor board to pimp slap my employer."

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate
I love living in Canada.

In any case, I now have to go work for a horrible call centre because of my current layoff. I've noticed at least one violation that would cause the Labour board and the Human Rights board to pimp slap them for here to next week.

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004

Harminoff posted:

Most states it isn't required that you are paid for breaks. It's not even required that you are given a break. I don't know why everyone thinks otherwise.

Key word. Sorry I just assumed you guys had same labour laws as well. :canada:

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
Look who got an email!

quote:

Employers must pay employees for "on duty" meal periods. An "on duty" meal period is one where the worker is not provided at least 30 consecutive minutes free from work, or where the worker is not free to leave the employer’s premises. Employers may not deduct from a worker's wages for any time off of less than 30 consecutive minutes. Breaks that are 30 minutes or more may be unpaid as long as the employee is completely relieved of duty and free to leave the premises. In your situation, if during the restroom breaks you have at least 30 minutes off, then the employer does not have to pay you for that time. If you just get a quick restroom break of less than 30 minutes, then the employer has to pay you for that time.


quote:

If the employer allows you for at least a 30 minute break and you are allowed to leave the premises, then the employer can have you clock out and not pay you for that time.

If your break is for less than 30 minutes or you are not free to leave the premises, then they employer should pay you for that time. If the employer is not paying you for these "on-duty" breaks, then you may file a claim with us for those unpaid hours of work.

quote:

For the 30 minute break during which you're able to leave, that break can be unpaid.

For the restroom breaks, I assume that those breaks are for less than 30 minutes, so they have to be paid.

So now for step 2, once I figure out what step 2 is :)

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what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur
Step 2 is get the (wrong) policy in writing from your employers, submit a log saying you pee twice a day every day and have been doing so since the new (wrong) policy was implemented, let the labor board take it up with your employer, get paid after the labor board finds your employer at fault, then later on get laid off for something trumped up just enough to be plausibly unrelated to your complaint.

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