I work night shifts in a call center for one of the 10 largest companies in the world. I post about it all the time on my Facebook, and if you follow me i’m sure you know which one by now 😉.
Now that i’ve been there and established myself, I thought I would share some thoughts and stories from my time there.
First, pretty much everyone calling is above the age of 50. Not surprising, considering if you need to make a call every month to be told that you made six purchases TODAY, I think you need to benefit from some of that Canadian healthcare and check yourself for syphilis because man, your brain is screwed.
Secondly, there’s way too many people that have way too many issues doing something as simple as creating an online account, logging in, and just navigating basic U.Is. I thought I was living in the present, but clearly i’m in the future – these people are still living in the 80s! Macs just came out, the Amiga 500 is rocking it, and wow, these online websites, I tell ya! Making me use a keyboard! And… typing, yeah this bit is getting drawn out.
But seriously! I had a freaking doctor call in who had trouble just logging in.
I’ve had people in their early 20s calling in with the same issues! Now that’s just plain impressive.
Thirdly, and this one is much less surprising, no one knows how credit cards work. What is more surprising is that people who have had cards for years don’t know how their cards work – and I mean the entire concept, the physical card, the mechanisms, the interest, NONE of it.
Customers routinely call in and complain about getting interest for not paying the card off all the time. “Why did I get charged 20$ this month? What is this charge on my statement?”.
Okay, so they’re smart enough to read a statement, but they don’t know what interest is? Some of them are playing dumb trying to get us to wipe the interest charges, sure, but we get a LOT of these calls, and considering all the other types of calls we get I don’t think this is where you draw the line between stupidity and pettiness – because yeah, if you’re willing to go through voice boxes and hold the line for 3-10 minutes and then whine for up to 20 minutes and possibly even go for another 20+ minutes for a supervisor, all for 13$ of interest? That’s just being petty.
Or go on the extreme end of “not understanding interest” and you get people who open the card, say they “didn’t know it was a credit card” as if someone at [ANONYMOUS FORTUNE 10 COMPANY] would just give you a credit card out of the willingness of their heart because goddamn, you’re an amazing client and we just appreciate your service so much!
And then said clients want to close the account once they see ONE SMALL INTEREST CHARGE. Grow up. Pay your dues. I’m broke, and i’m paying my dues. The worst part of it to me is that these are the same people voting conservative/republican against their own interest (heh, pun).
Fourthly, and this one might seem like an aside, but it is legitimately fun (at least, so far) working in an environment where the competition is pretty much entirely based on your own performance. You supposedly get small bonuses, not that i’ve even seen said bonuses despite achieving them, and even if I had, they are absolutely pathetic performance bonuses. But hey! That’s what you get when you work at a call center that’s essentially sub-contracting for [ANONYMOUS FORTUNE 10 COMPANY]. Twist! I don’t even technically work for said [ANONYMOUS FORTUNE 10 COMPANY]! So, of course said company famous for destroying entire economic landscapes of entire regions wouldn’t pay shit, but now since we’re basically sub-contracting, our REAL company has to pay us even less in order to make money! Holy shit. Yeah, i’m paid 1$ above min wage in Quebec, and our minimum wage is getting raised in less than two months BY 1$! Who wants to bet our own wage won’t raise at all as a consequence? Good times.
Wait, wasn’t I talking about how great it is to work here?
Well, it’s not as bad as a lot of even my fellow employees make it out to be. This is just a result of capitalism – getting pressured to perform and getting paid nothing is absolutely something you should be expecting getting into this specific company.
My biggest surprise working at this company has actually been how lenient they’ve been – they know most of us have zero or close to zero experience in the field, and they know learning about 160 S.O.P documents is a lot, and they’ve given us a lot of time to practice, ask questions, and get good – and if you perform at least decently they don’t give you any shit, and are actually nice! Like genuinely nice. I’ve had some good advice, some that has been a bit brutal, but it’s all been honest and not some double-speak – which is very much admirable, not to mention optimal : people who don’t speak up if they have an issue with me, or people who drop me at the first sight of something they dislike deeply piss me off.
This essay has gone on long enough, but i’ll be writing more on the subject at another time, since BOY do I have a lot of stories about dumb, irritating, and sometimes (rarely!), great clients. Thanks for giving it a read, and have a good one <3.