Give Me a Break !!!

Give Me a Break

After having irate customers since you started your shift, don’t you wish you’re just the automated IVR stating this one? Hahahahaha

Resignation Day

I am not going to resign — at least not yet. Not for now. I still have some things to attend to before I tender my resignation.

Just like any other companies, tendering resignations in a call center is just the same. But what makes the difference is being informed on how to formally resign from your company.

Rule #1: Don’t go on AWOL.  Don’t go on “Absence without leave” just because you decided to resigned. What if you decided you still want to go back? Others just felt the heat, just got drained, felt bored but when all of these are over, they felt like coming back. You already have a bad record. This company would not “recall” you anymore. So why not try to apply for an “indefinite leave” while you are still thinking things over or trying to recharge your life?

Rule #2: Choose your “plan” of exit. Either immediate, 15 days or 30 days notice. Any of these three, back it up with a formal letter of resignation. Reasons can be personal, personal growth, career growth, undisclosed, migrating to a new location — be plain and simple in explaining. What’s important is that your exit to the company is formal and the company is informed on the details why you are leaving. We document every reasons why an employee resigned in our company. This helps us analyze how we can grow as a company and makes us understand better how we can keep our employees stay for years.

Rule #3: Be clear with your compensations/last pay. Before leaving the company, ask them what comes next after my last day in the office. These includes when are you going to get your last pay, computation of your backpay / separation pay [if there is], clearance, things you need to surrender before finally leaving the office, etc. When you are already out of the office, it’s already difficult to ask for these information as most of the time, the company is very busy for people who are no longer supplying them money hahahahaha

Rule #4: Keep your friends closer. Your friends are your access to the company if you need info. If you can’t get through your HR department because the line is always busy or the person you are looking is always not in the office, at least have some of your friends asked for the info you need.

If you need resources in writing resignation letters, check out this site:

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/sampleresignationletters/Resignation_Letter_Samples_Examples_of_Resignation_Letters.htm

Recession: More To Come

I just came from a 4 days rest and as soon as I opened my emails, there I have seen it — a new batch of employees that was kicked out from our company. What is really so surprising is the fact that these persons are the “performers” [welll-except for one i hate her!) but they were still kicked out.

So, now, everyone is asking — what is really the reason behind the company’s decision to terminate an employee? Because we can’t see any pattern on these employees why they should be released. They don’t have an reliability issue or no any serious issue that was done to the company, etc …

And from what I’ve heard — there will be another wave of employees that will be ditched!!

Ohhhh recession !!!!

Halili and Kho Scandal

I actually have the 5 videos after searching in the internet for one and a half hour! Whew! With all the opened websites — can no longer remember where I got the links So if you want to have it, just reply here, ill be happy to ’share’ it!

I am not trying to exaggerate here but I only knew the video scandal thingy ust this week. I don’t know but me having to work in a call center feels like creating my own world. After work, it’s either that a call center employee goes home or hang out first. And when I hang out [or we hang out], we normally talk about how our day was or what happened all throughout — even if we don’t like to talk about the usual happenings in our workplace — we still ended up talking about it.

99% of your mind concentration revolves around what has happened to your job and by the time you get home, all you want to do is to get enough sleep. You don’t want to hear any noises before you doze off, because the noise in the call center company is already unbearable sometimes, so no t.v., no radio and no loud talking!!!!

That’s why I didn’t knew that there was this hot video scandal talks already. I was just told by my sister that there is and she wants me to download it . I told her, if it’s been over a month, pretty sure, it’ll be hard to find already. But my sister persisted.

So, I did. I keep on searching while I’m downloading the season 4 of my favorite Ally McBeal. Took me an hour. But what a shock it was to me when I found out that there’s just not only one but there are lots!! One download and I’ve got 5 video scandals. Long playing videos of Kho with his victimized women!

I think, in the real world, there’s really Mister and Miss Aggressive persons who can just treat sex just like a fast food. Varieties, choices — all you can eat anytime, anywhere coz its readily available. THe only thing that made it so bad is that what they thought they were doing in private has become publicized!

I won’t be surprised if Katrina Halili will be abstinating for awhile because of the trauma. I can only imagine that when she’s about to do it with a man, she will always have this hesitation that there’s just a video around the room and she’ll end up neglecting doing it with him! Hahaha !! Poor man!!

I just hope that Kho will be given the right kind of punishment he deserves because if he claims he is not the one who publicized the videos, there won’t be any video, if he in the first place, did not record his private moments with his women!

Lock Then Leave

Our IT department in the company would always remind us to lock your computer if you want to leave it for a while or shut it down when you’re going home already. Privacy is a big concern in and out of the company. Even if in our department we know what files might be there in each of our computer, it is still important to keep it safe from any intruder.

For instance, my colleague says that she will just go to the sleeping quarters and will take a sleep instead of having lunch. Unfortunately for her, she left her pc unlocked. My boss had to use her computer because one of the websites where we need to see a data is not running on his. But jeez!!! What pops out on the screen was the gross picture of her having “intimate” moments with two other girls on a secluded room. Wow — they could even pose for FHM! Of course, we all have our own skeletons in the closet, but that one was a blast. And we just decided to kept to ourselves what we’ve seen since the girl is one of our most prized worker in that department.

Now, that’s the serious reason behind locking your stations before leaving it.

Years ago, I remember that in our company, the IT department would still use it as a reminder on our screensaver so my friend thought of something. When one of our colleagues left and he did not lock his pc, he used it and created the email. The time we received it, here is what it said:

“It’s the year of the chicken and I love chicken joy”

He actually “send it to all” and we all shared a good laugh at it!

Moving Forward

And so I thought about recession … but there it is — a new call center offering so much higher pay than what our company is paying us. And they are going to give us just one  fourth of the load work than what we are doing in the office.

Give in or just stay in the company?

Is this a decision of loyalty or the need to have a higher pay due to economic crisis?

I guess, the answer is already obvious. Because some of my colleagues chose the “higher pay” over loyalty.

Moving forward is a good thing most of all if it is going to give you a better reason to ive your life. What’s hard is you’ll always have something to look back from what you’ve left behind.  I am what’s left behind. A new set of people to work with [because they were easily replaced by somebody else] and a new workload [of course, you can't teach a dog new tricks overnight].

I don’t know if I’m sad because my friend left the company or I’m sad because he just added some load to my overloaded work already … hahahaha!

But that’s how life in a call center. Once you’re gone, or even before you’re gone, there’s somebody already in line waiting to replace you.

Number 1 Rule: Don’t Fight Back

They say that fighting back is being coward but not fighting back is the true sign of cowardice. I realize it is true in call center. Since your customers is your main source of income, whatever they say , will always be correct and don’t fight back.

For example:

Agent: Please pull up an Internet Explorer

Customer: I don’t have Internet Explorer but I have a blue Internet Explorer.

Agent: [Aahh...wondering why and what]

 

Another example:

Agent: Please turn off your modem, router and computer.

Customer: Ok

Agent: Just tell me if all of your devices are turned off

Customer: Ok…you just said computer

Agent: [doing some yoga breathing already... ] Well… anyways, you can turn the modem and router off now

 

And another example….

Agent: So you’re having a password issue. Are we talking about your email password, wireless connection password, or the password on the computer when you first boot it up?

Customer: On my computer

Agent:As your internet service provider, we only have control on your email and wireless connection password but not on your computer’s password per se.

Customer: Yeah exactly. I can’t sign in. When I go to my website on the computer, I can’t sign in.

Agent: Oh ok [now i have a better understanding -- i hope so].  So which website are you trying to sign in?

Customer: [raising his voice now] Oh now, you’re invading my privacy! You are now asking which website I am going to!

Agent: [started doing some yoga breathing again] we’re just trying to isolate which website are you trying to sign in because you maybe accessing a different website where your email logins don’t work. So if you’re using a _____ account, you must be in the ______ website. So which website were yare ou trying to sign in?

Customer: I wont tell you which website it is.

Agent:[Duh! So ... how can i help you again?] Ok, Mr. _____

 

In this scenarios, don’t fight back, of course. I just tell myself, one of the hardest thing to communicate is when you cannot see the other person and just hearing what he / she has to say. And i am such a very coward person.

Threats and Violence

I had been in a call center where in they have this “extra pay” that they called as hazard pay. First time I heard about it, that’s a good idea. But what does it do if you have already been mobbed or something terrible happen to you.

I had a neighbor in which her end of shift is at 3 a.m. She is not afraid to go out of the building during that time. Plus, the fact that it was salary day for her. When  she took the jeep, there were two men already inside and these two men wasted no time telling her that they would take all of her money. She fought back so one of the men bang her head on the rear end of the Jeep until she felt dizzy and can no longer care if they took all of her belongings. Fortunately, she was able to come back home.

Three months past. And this girl is already jobless. Now, she is just sitting in the wheelchair, can no longer move and when she look at you, tears are falling from her eyes.

The sad truth is, you are working in a call center that is high paying and has a lot of incentives but are we really safe at all? Are we covered with all of these incentives?

I don’t care if I will be put in a shift wherein I had to go to the office by 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. This is the job that I chose and I swore during my employment that any day / time is ok with me. However, my concern is my safety. Our place is not a 24/7 place. At this wee hour of the morning, you’ll get lucky if you can get a tricycle or jeep that will take you to where the company shuttle stops. And you are even lucky if the shuttle is still there.

I think that there is a much more needed program to combat these kind of situation. In my mind, it may be kind of impossible but how about giving a place to settle for these agents while they are still in the odd hours of their job? Of course, if you are already in the safe hours, you are no longer allowed to stay in that place. That’s too abusive of you hahaha. it may be impossible but one of my friend told me that their company has this kind of setting but they are located in Pampanga. Whew!!! That’s far from where I live.

Rants and Complains

First day in the call center and I got a customer shouting at me and telling me “this computer sucks! Eversince I bought it — it’s already a burden! No wonder people are choosing blah-blah-blah over your computer!!!”

I almost believe my customer. Well, it is believable really. I know this because I also have some things in my possession that when I first got it, it is more of a burden than a happiness to me.

But then, I got suffocated handling voice calls. Luckily, I got into email support for another brand of computer. Guess what? An email saying ”this computer sucks! Eversince I bought it — it’s already a burden! No wonder people are choosing blah-blah-blah over your computer!!!”

This is when reality hits me. In the course of my work, I have encountered a lot of rants and complains and they are just usually the same thing. Kind of stereotype already.  This just goes to show that there are various kind of people in the world. There are those who complains a lot, the one who doesn’t complain at all but will just switch to another brand because of dissatisfaction and the one who promotes the product a lot because of satisfaction.

So where do you belong?

Sex Crave

Stereotype nowadays is that sex is so rampant when you are in the call center industry. It was even discussed in Marie Claire’s Philippine Edition last year, that well, brought me up in writing about this. Why just react now? I just bought the back issue of the magazine — lol.

Well, as they say, that is their opinion. But then, it is no one’s opinion anymore if it’s being talked about by many of us already. For someone like me who has an open mind about these things, I just tend to ignore the issue because ‘I’m not one of you’but in the long run, one cannot just ignore it. You are labeled,  you are tagged, you are being viewed at and you are being looked at — that way.

Just as my POV, with the call center booming nowadays, everywhere you look at there is a building being built for a call center company, you tend to meet a lot of people with mixed lifestyles, perspectives and attitudes. Especially most of these companies are owned by, not the locals, but by foreigners who has a different way of life. We are influenced, sometimes we are taught to be like them and act like them so we can be really one of them. some are crossing the borders mindlessly. Some are just being carried away. Some still choose what is real and reel or what is right and what is really, really wrong.

Fast changing world — that is what the real deal in a call center. If you can’t go with the flow, that happens every minute, hour or day, you might not take it. However, the bottom of the issue is it all boils down to the real character of the person.

If you already experienced having sex, in reality, you can do it over and over again whether you are working in our industry or not. If you are a man/woman who has an overwhelming sex appeal, you will really have someone among your admirers to go to bed with you – and I’ve seen this happens even while I was working still in my early years of working [imagine the shock?!?]. My dad’s friend has gone to bed with 3 other women in their same department and they are working in a newspaper company. He even ended up leaving the original wife over the third wife [now -- what happens to the second?]

We are in now in the state where the influence of the modern is sooo getting in to us. We are so exposed to vulgarity, obscenity, violence and much more other things. At the end of the day, only one thing matters: it is your choice of how you will live your life.