call center life

I have been a call center employee for the past decade,  started off as a CSR in a directory assistance firm for the US. At first I didn’t really know what a CSR did, only knew that it meant helping customers on a daily basis, see I wasn’t able to finish my studies and prior to working at a call center my previous job was at a factory of under garments and as a room attendant in a hotel in  Ayala, had my fair share of foreign tenants in the hotel that I regularly interacted with which probably helped build my self confidence and made me apply as a CSR when the opportunity arose, So from being one of the blue collared workers I transitioned to the most trending job to date aside from nursing here in the PH. There has been mixed reactions to our kind of work, other people would say “Wow, you work at a call center? Big time!(rich)” or some would say “Wow English speaking!” but some would react as “The work you do are for people that didn’t finish their studies” or the kind of work I do is a no brainer or for dummies because I only answer phones. Let me set things straight, it may look easy and very dull at first sight but once you get yourself on the actual process it really is a very tedious and draining process. It doesn’t only require being patient but also being spontaneous, creative and intelligent, why do I say this? Taking calls is not an easy job talking on the headset is easy it’s the procedure of explaining and making the other person accept and understand what you want them to.  It doesn’t matter if  it worked on your previous call that it will automatically work on the next ones, people have different levels of understanding and you might as well be surprised that a lot of them don’t know what they are talking about. There are also people that are the living examples of stubbornness and those that just chose to live inside their own world and refuse to accept any reason or explanation. That being said its not easy being in our shoes, I’m not going to say that our line of work is harder or easier than others that’s way too disrespectful and has poor taste.  Now that those are out of the way, I would dare say that working in this kind of industry has helped a lot of people and the country itself. Its fun here most outsourcing companies provide great if not better benefits like medical assistance(HMO) free for the employees and  (2) of their dependents 15-20% night differential, free coffee, free food, trips to domestic and international destinations(raffles) others also provides loans and gym memberships all of these depending of course on what is offered by the company you work for, upsides also include meeting and interacting with a lot of different people a decent workplace (air conditioned, own station, free coffee dispenser at break areas cable tv and free wifi). Team buildings are also fun we get to travel to different places as a team then conduct activities for everyone to enjoy, Oh! and did I mention that most salaries are higher than the regular jobs out in the market?

Let’s now go to the details of the hazards in working for a call center, first of the time difference although day shifts or mid day shifts are now available majority of the contact centers operate at night that being said it’s going to be a big adjustment if you are not used to being awake at the wee hours of the evening and doing work, stress also builds up with sometimes unreachable metrics that managers and center requires (in some cases) then there is this problem for people with very low resistance to bad eating habits (I’m guilty of this)  when you have free food and beverages offered when you feel sleepy you would be tempted to eat, eat and eat just to stay up and there’s also smoking, I had a friend that wasn’t really a smoker but a few months after she became a half pack smoker per day! As for the people you may want to hate, they are the power trippers people who abuse their authority for personal gain. These people are the worst once they set their eyes on you, you really have to be very careful not to incur any offenses that will give them a chance to terminate your ass! They hire friends for higher positions so they can monopolize the power in the company and bully people around the only way for you to avoid them is to stay neutral or act stupid and play the game they want you to play. Also there are some.. well many occurrences that I saw marriages and relationships ruined in the call center industry due to infidelity, well these things I mentioned are not really isolated in the call center industry but just a result of poor human behavior.  So its gonna be up to you, are you gonna be call center agent?

Thanks for taking the time in reading my post, this might help you decide on being part of this industry or taking a different route, there are a lot more that I might have forgotten to write here.  This is my first attempt of sharing my thoughts online so please feel free to add or comment your thoughts as well . thanks!