Call center jobs suck so bad they are a fucking laugh a minute

[graywarrior]

Who's worse-call center co-workers or the customers we're supposed to give a shit about?


Fucking unbelievable. Next time you call customer service at any company imagine undertrained, psychotic, I've-taken-too-many-calls-from-assholes-already-so-go-fuck-yourself-and-die employees with bad attitudes because their supervisors are complete fucking idiots and either refuse or can not answer the questions the csr's are asking. CSR's make up shit just to get you off the phone. They make up shit because their supervisor either runs away or has no answer.

If I wasn't laughing so hard I'd strangle the Comcast reps I've been trying to get to put my internet bill in my name instead of my landlords for the past 2 weeks. Holy shit, what an eye opener.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. ...

:hug:

Now, go reply to my Boston thread... :D

[DS1]

2. Never worked in a call center, sure wouldn't want to

that's why I'm polite as possible when calling those places, many times once they've realized there's a friendly voice on the other side, I get all sorts of nice treatment.

I wasn't always that way, of course.

[DarkTirade]

3. I remember having to call a call center a while back

because for some reason the CD they gave me to install drivers for the modem (yes, this was back in the days of dialup) just didn't work on my computer.

First thing I told the guy is, "I'm a computer geek. I'm not going to ask you a million stupid questions. Just tell me what to do to set the modem up and I'll do it."

I could practically hear his sigh of relief. :)

I'm guessing it was probably his quickest and easiest call all day. I didn't have to ask him where the Control Panel was. He didn't have to wait for me to click and type torturously slowly. He just told me what to do, I did it, and the modem was set up. Done.

[newmajority]

4. Any more, I'm just happy if I get one who can speak English.

With Comcast, the battle is getting past the first level of "tech-support" where they assume you are a complete moron and waste a half hour asking you if everything is plugged in and the power's on.

Maybe it's because they outsource all of it (as so many corporations do) but they should be able to skip over a few lines in the script if somebody makes it evident that they have a specific problem?

Or maybe I'm just anal about this stuff because I used to do tech-support for a really crappy software company whose customer base had a lot of inbred morons.

[DarkTirade]

5. I think every software company has to deal with those users.

Because the ones who know what the hell they're doing aren't the ones calling you up and asking for help.

[GirlinContempt]

21. Comcast monitors the calls.

Well, not true. Convergys, who is hired by comcast, monitors the calls. There are certain things you have to ask.
I should know, I worked for Comcast via Convergys, one of those awful outsourced workers, despite Convergys being a Canadian company.

With customers, the battle is getting past them thinking they're smarter than you to just have them check the basic things, or ensure they've checked it, so you don't end up stuck on the phone with them for 2 fucking hours while their modem is on standby and get reamed out by your TL.

[graywarrior]

6. I'm working for an energy company

Unfuckingbelievable.

[BlueJazz]

7. Florida Power?

[graywarrior]

9. No, out of state company

[TommyO]

8. I used to work an internal call center for a very large Fortune 500 company

and for some reason we managed to do it right - first off, we were all management positions with the power to truly help our users, secondly we were all either MCSEs or in the process of obtaining them (it was a Windows shop after all). While call time was important, if you had to spend four hours helping somebody, it wasn't the end of the world.

That's all changed now, all of the PC end-user support has been outsourced and now it's the script-readers that we have to deal with when placing trouble calls, blech! Of course, that doesn't compare to the absolutely horrific support for our outsourced telephone system, I spent nearly thirty minutes trying to get my IP phone replaced because it had an obvious hardware problem with the display, twenty minutes of that was on hold. ARGH!!!!

[graywarrior]

10. Our sales and other depts are in the Philippines

[krispos42]

11. Makes me glad to be in manufacturing

As Beavis said... "Customers suck"


I can spew any number of four-letter words at a saw or machining center, and nobody cares. Try calling a customer a "cocksucking motherfucking son-of-a-bitch", and I think your supervisor would take you aside for a little chat.

[LynzM]

12. Least. Favorite. Job. EVER.

I did call-center work, contracted to AOL, for 6 weeks. I'd cry every day before work.

Our job was to sell certain AOL products to customer, supposedly after they'd been helped, and chosen to transfer to us. However, the tech reps, who either couldn't help the people or were just sick of them, would often transfer them off to us. So now I've got someone who:

a.) Has not had their problem fixed
b.) I cannot transfer them back
c.) I am not allowed to help them even if I know how
d.) I have to try to sell them something.

It sucked, big time. I think the worst was getting called a "Fucking dumb bitch for working for them." Nice. That's gonna help me be nice to you. And you're not allowed to hang up on people, either. Really lovely.

I made it 6 weeks and then decided I was either quitting or getting promoted off the phones. I got out of there into legal validation and then into database admin for them. Still sucked, but not as bad.

I feel your pain, dude. :hug:

[DS1]

13. All your tables are belong to us

:evilgrin:

[LynzM]

15. Heh.

I was the only DBA at the office, got to run the DB however I damn well pleased! :evilgrin:

[Corgigal]

14. call center jobs are coming back home

and some of us (this DU'er) works out of her computer room taking your calls. You have no idea that I'm not a call center because you believe I am. I don't mind this job and I love the idea of working at home. Click the coming home story.

See this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#22882487

[DS1]

16. India just had its Internet bandwidth sliced in half when an undersea cable got cut

so yeah, they're scrambling because most of those call centers were VoIP :D

[Corgigal]

18. that probably has something to do with it

but also people wanted people that can understand them when they are ordering items. It's not really a stressful job and sometimes I meet really funny people while on the phone. As long as I can work at home, when I want to, it's all good. I guess for a part time job, I could do much worst.

[GirlinContempt]

23. I love that most of the call centers

are hired, not owned, by the companies. And the biggest one isn't even American :P :)

[Alexander]

34. How did you find this job, if you don't mind me asking?

I agree, doing call center work out of the home would be far less stressful. I'm curious as to how you found yourself doing this.

[VenusRising]

17. You should talk to this lady.

She knows how to get Comcast's attention.



http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3750705&page=1

[Maine-ah]

19. My Mom worked at MBNA for years

she was always having problems with high blood pressure which sent her to the hospital a couple of times. The local hospital had seen so many people from MBNA, that they called it "MBNA Syndrome". The companies put major pressure on these employess from bathroom breaks to how many accounts they saved/closed. Then there is the added pressure of talking to way too many angry people all day. The job sucks, and I feel for these people that work them, so I'm as nice as I can be when I have to deal with them, and I usually get better customer service when I am. I did have one particular call with Citizen's Bank where the guy told me to fuck off. I imagine he didn't have a job after that.

[LynzM]

29. Oh yeah.

You get x minutes of breaks, x minutes for lunch, and you're rated each day on (fill-in-the-blank) - in our case it was how many sales and how many second sales (%) we made. Your pay depends on it. I was pregnant while on the phones, and had to petition management to give me 3 10-minute breaks instead of 2 15-minute breaks, so I could go pee more often. x( Suckola. I'm sorry your mom had to go through that...

[TrogL]

20. My daughter is a call centre supervisor

She's the one who gets to handle the real doozies. For confidentiality reasons I can't tell any of her stories, but many are on the order of 45 minutes worth of "you have to give me a credit on my bill because I'm too fucking stupid to breathe" or "your phone is making the food in my refrigerator turn bad and I'm calling the Illuminati". They will, of course, also want a credit for the 45 minute call. And all the porn they downloaded.

She's relieved when she actually gets someone with a coherent problem.

[GirlinContempt]

24. I had someone

explain to me, for over 1/2 an hour, that his internet kept going down because he knew stuff about the Scientologists THAT I WOULD NOT BELIEVE!!!!! and so they were following him, intercepting his emails to major news networks so they never got them, etc.

That one went on speakerphone. While trying not to laugh, I explained that there is nothing we can do about Scientologists, and maybe he should walk down to his local library to send these oh so important emails. He then went in to great detail about how the Scientologists waited outside of his house and followed him everywhere he went so he couldn't send the emails from anywhere else because they would be intercepted there too. He was thinking of flying to where ever they had their news headquarters, but he thought the Scientologists would make the airfare too expensive.

And the guy who said we were sending Tom Sellak ( I think it was him) to his house when he wasn't home to go through his desk, and would we please stop.

[TrogL]

26. He may be right

and it's probably Tom Cruise breaking into his house.

[StrongBad]

22. I work in a call center

It's a sales job where your objective is to close every call that comes to you. I don't really mind it that much as it's an easy sell and my supervisors are cool. The only thing that bugs me are assholes who call with an attitude. For some reason though, most of the time they seem to just get "accidentally" cut off during the middle of our conversation :)

I think I'd hate it much more if I had to do tech support or customer service. With sales my average call is about 7-8 minutes and I have a lot of downtime during the day.

[havocmom]

25. Friend worked at MCI and there were constant safety issues

CSRs not allowed to leave chair without permission. There was a fire, people left desks... and were written up for it.

Next fire (wiring issues) had a fireman STANDING ON MY FRIEND'S DESK, hose in hand (water oozing down it onto her and desk) spraying at smoldering materials between the structural ceiling and the dropped ceiling.

Her supervisor would not grant permission for her to leave her chair. She was taking calls and trying to solve problems working in with electrically connected computers and phones with water pouring over her and her desk, her hands reaching around and between a fireman's feet, but they would not grant permission to step away from desk! She was a known rabble rouser who had tipped off OSHA (several times) about the absence of fire escape doors to the work areas. Her college degrees gave her the knowledge to assess and document chemical hazards in the work space. She held the heads of several co-workers who were puking their guts up on their twice a shift bathroom breaks, such was the level of stress. She was older than most employees and knew a bit about labor laws (well, the few that still existed at the time) and she helped younger workers with resources for information about their rights.

My daughter worked for the call center subsidiary of United Airlines that handled their frequent flier calls and problems. Like MCI, the CSRs there had to jump through a mess of testing to get the jobs. Most were pretty bright, good people, but seriously abusive management made most of them just plain nuts over time. VERY bad stress and constant increases in foolishness from the top until most workers just gave in and became as obnoxious as their conditions. THAT place is shut down now.

[tjwmason]

27. I did a couple of weeks in one when I was a student

It wasn't a bad one, it was just taking mail-orders for women's clothing. I did rapidly start to recognise the dialing codes from various parts of the country, it's amazing how much callers did fit into local stereotypes of how polite/friendly they would be.

I always do my best to be polite - I recently had to have a multitude of calls with my I.S.P., when some of the folk read the length of the report on my account one could sense them getting ready to be shouted at, but were always pleased when I didn't and was properly behaved.

[Initech]

28. If I worked any sort of customer service job I'd probably go postal.

[bookworm65t]

30. I worked in one for five years

It is a job from hell, because you are always on the shit side. Management is always much much worse than the customers.

The worse company for call centers is GE. My brother-in-law used to tell me that they were a great company, Yeah to anyone not in the know.

[madrchsod]

31. hey my daughter worked at a call center!

she was polite to everyone of her calls...she really hated her job. she quit after 3 months

[UncleSepp]

32. Is the pic in your sig of a movie about the Wobblies?

I can't really make it out, but it looks like it has credits on the bottom. If it is, that'd be something I'd really like to see!

[billyskank]

33. You working in a call centre seems to me a mismatching of concepts.

I cannot get my brain around this.