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I'm being "promoted" to a position on the phones.  why do I have to be good at sales?
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May 15, 2015 16:21
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Welp, after a blissful couple of months between jobs completely free of any semblance of responsibility, effort, or pressure, I will now be working in a call centre. I'm sure it will be great as they told me that the targets are fair and attainable and there will be opportunities to advance within the company .
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May 16, 2015 20:57
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Austen Tassletine posted:Welp, after a blissful couple of months between jobs completely free of any semblance of responsibility, effort, or pressure, I will now be working in a call centre. I'm sure it will be great as they told me that the targets are fair and attainable and there will be opportunities to advance within the company 
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May 16, 2015 21:03
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Wizard of Smart posted:I'm being "promoted" to a position on the phones. HAHA NEVERMIND THE PROGRAM ENDED time for unemployment.
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May 22, 2015 22:53
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how does one find a call center job in the USA? I wear I've joined a lot of job recruitment sites but so far no luck.
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May 24, 2015 06:04
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Where do you live? It's a regional industry, a lot of call centers are in the midwest, mainly due to the lack of strong accents and the low cost of living.
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May 24, 2015 20:03
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Konstantin posted:Where do you live? It's a regional industry, a lot of call centers are in the midwest, mainly due to the lack of strong accents and the low cost of living. Definately the latter. There are two call centers where I work, in addition to the regional ISP I work for that has its own call center, due to our areas cost of living.
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May 24, 2015 20:05
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Konstantin posted:Where do you live? It's a regional industry, a lot of call centers are in the midwest, mainly due to the lack of strong accents and the low cost of living. NYC, NY. I've joined job listing sites but so far no luck despite applying to most of them.
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May 24, 2015 23:56
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edit: Oops. Never mind.
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Jun 9, 2015 16:52
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legsarerequired posted:I was repeatedly told I lacked discipline because of this, and the manager would tell us in meetings that none of us could handle an office job if we couldn't hold off from using the bathroom. Oh my good god, this is literally the least true thing that has ever been uttered by a human. That sounds like something a high school guidance counselor would say.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:18
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Radbot posted:Oh my good god, this is literally the least true thing that has ever been uttered by a human. That sounds like something a high school guidance counselor would say. This was said by several managers. Apparently our site director and human resources had absolutely no idea that this level of micromanagement was going on.
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Jun 9, 2015 20:45
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Radbot posted:Oh my good god, this is literally the least true thing that has ever been uttered by a human. That sounds like something a high school guidance counselor would say. That's kind of the vibe, isn't it? They told me to get a doctor's note saying I needed to be allowed to urinate if I wanted to do it more often.
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Jun 9, 2015 20:55
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:That's kind of the vibe, isn't it? They told me to get a doctor's note saying I needed to be allowed to urinate if I wanted to do it more often. In glorious at will Idaho, I told my boss when he tried to pull that on me that I would contact OSHA. I didn't get fired somehow and he never mentioned it to me again. I am so glad I don't work in Call centers anymore, where nobody cares if you go to the bathroom whenever you darn well please.
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Jun 9, 2015 21:03
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As a former call center worker who has graduated to the glorious realm of TPS reports and coversheets, I just want to say to never, ever let call center bosses get you down. Now that I get to decide which contact centers live and die based on my analysis, it really puts the bullshit I experienced in perspective. Don't give up and don't apply to just call centers. Apply for marketing coordinator and similar positions, learn the ropes, and keep job hopping every one or two years until you're a manager.
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Jun 9, 2015 22:13
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:That's kind of the vibe, isn't it? They told me to get a doctor's note saying I needed to be allowed to urinate if I wanted to do it more often. *deaf&hard of hearing relay, so not quite traditional call center work. Radbot posted:As a former call center worker who has graduated to the glorious realm of TPS reports and coversheets, I just want to say to never, ever let call center bosses get you down. Now that I get to decide which contact centers live and die based on my analysis, it really puts the bullshit I experienced in perspective. Swing by the interviewing thread in BFC too. The advice in there helped me get my current job. ladyweapon fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 00:43
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I have an interview for an Operations Administrator role at my call centre on Monday. It's nicer hours (11-7 instead of 1-9), a bit of a bump in pay and a chance to leave the phones behind. Not that I hate fundraising but I spend half my time doing events calls which sucks. The job involves managing rotas, holidays, sickness and other such things. I've done similar work in the past when I was in retail but it was a long time ago and I want to do my best in this interview. Anyone got any tips on things I can do to prepare?
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Jun 20, 2015 08:50
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ladyweapon posted:I've worked fast food, retail, one "call center"*, and in offices. Even the worst office job I've had didn't come close to anything I dealt with in retail and such. Of course there are some crap office environments, micromanagers, etc, but that manager is full of it. I've never had someone try to regulate when I used the restroom. The only situation I can think of where that may have happened is if I temped in for a receptionist. Even then it would be to let someone know to watch the lines for a couple minutes. If I call out sick the only thing my boss asks me for is to put up my out of office message. Eh, I got promoted out of the call centre into an admin position. Now I just do accounts payable/receivable all day, go over invoices, and audit the sales call centre reps do. To be fair, my call centre is considered the "holy grail" of companies to work for in the city, so even the phone monkeys are treated well.
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Jun 28, 2015 08:31
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Rarity posted:I have an interview for an Operations Administrator role at my call centre on Monday. It's nicer hours (11-7 instead of 1-9), a bit of a bump in pay and a chance to leave the phones behind. Not that I hate fundraising but I spend half my time doing events calls which sucks. The job involves managing rotas, holidays, sickness and other such things. I've done similar work in the past when I was in retail but it was a long time ago and I want to do my best in this interview. Anyone got any tips on things I can do to prepare? I got the job! Took my last call yesterday, I'm now in a job that routes me into a career I'm interested in and I'll be doing work that requires actual thought! 
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Jun 28, 2015 09:34
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Got a casual debt collecting job to work while I study, yay! I'm excited
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Jul 9, 2015 10:16
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Boy some people just push my buttons. This woman is confident the problem is on our end, even though what she is complaining about is phone service, and we're talking on that phone line. She has 2 phones in her home one in her living room one in her bedroom. The Bedroom phone doesn't work. It is either an equipment or inside wiring issue, but she ran me around for 15 minutes trying to find an attack angle that would make it not her home wiring or phone so she could get us to waive the $40 fee. I told her if she was absolutely certain that the issue was on our end that the tech wouldn't charge her when he came out if she is right so go ahead and schedule the call. Obviously she did not, because she knows she's wrong. Bitch.
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Jul 9, 2015 16:22
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I'm pretty sure being off the phones is within my grasp by the end of this year, I only have to be trained in one more department before I'm trained in them all and thusly qualified to wrangle my own team of CSRs, and with the rate we're expanding, I can't imagine I'm not on a shortlist, I'm really, really good at my job right now.
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Jul 9, 2015 22:42
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krampster2 posted:Got a casual debt collecting job to work while I study, yay! I'm excited Get used to being asked by all and sundry "How can you do that all day. Don't you feel bad?"  After the first few days I just stopped caring that I was calling 80 year olds about debt and judgements being entered against them.
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Jul 10, 2015 01:36
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At 80 do you really care anymore?
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Jul 10, 2015 15:14
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If you have money you were intending to leave to your kids, then yes. The call center I work at has been slowly getting worse as a new executive came in and has started implementing a lot of the things seen in this thread. Luckily I did well in an interview for an off-phones support position, but if I don't get that I am out of there when they do away with job titles and promotions in favor of "skill sets" which will probably be in about 2-3 months. Going from a specialist that deals with specific elevated calls and does a significant amount of non-phone work to just being a front line phone monkey with a few extra skills is not what I signed up for. Edit: Got the position, only two weeks left on the phones, and I'm out. Got a significant raise and I'll avoid the hell that is front line support. New boss seems a bit incompotent, but that could be because rear end in a top hat Executive created the whole department out of thin air and reassigned tasks that used to be handled in several different departments, so a lot of institutional expertise is going down the tubes. Konstantin fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 17:57
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lol, our IT department is such a clowncar of idiots Like clockwork in the major summer rushes in early June, Busy O'Clock on Monday morning, our systems would crash and render us worthless for tons of time. Finally after 6 weeks of this happening, the IT department announces a "robust server upgrade" and I'm fairly sure they all put in a 16 hour day yesterday unrolling it, and as soon as we started up today with a Sunday skeleton crew the whole thing poo poo the bed. Ugh. If this rolls into the Monday rush, I fully expect people to lose their job.
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Jul 26, 2015 14:25
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I wish there was something that could be done for CSRs. It's not back-breaking work, but I feel like I saw so much exploitation of CSRs from management when I worked in a call center. I was able to stop a lot of legal violations by calling an anonymous hotline, but some other things (such as no bathroom breaks outside of the pre-scheduled break times) were perfectly legal. That doesn't even begin to go into the gray areas management would use. Management and HR totally knew that most of the people in that department wouldn't report labor law violations or things that hurt our morale because very few of us had any other options for work, and they totally took advantage of it. The only advice I've received is to support the IWW, but I don't think that the people in my southeast Texas call center would have been on board with joining a labor union...
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Jul 26, 2015 22:31
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legsarerequired posted:The only advice I've received is to support the IWW, but I don't think that the people in my southeast Texas call center would have been on board with joining a labor union... As a union call center worker, I can say that it's so, so much better than it was working for a non-union shop. The job still sucks but there's someone to smack the company around when they try the real shady stuff. The downside is that you have to negotiate every few years, which is why I might be on strike next Saturday. That would really suck.
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Jul 26, 2015 23:23
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Have worked 2 days now in my new job, today I got swore at for the first time, yay! Some gent called me a gently caress wit which I don't think is very nice or accurate but that's okay. Also had to collect debt from a Vietnam vet and deal with a mother crying about her dead daughter I was trying to contact  Are there ways to deal with my eyes watering up constantly? I have messed up eyes that get all teary from staring at a screen for ages even when the screen is on minimum brightness. Please don't tell me I have to wear silly yellow glasses at work.
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Aug 11, 2015 13:18
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Not a doctor response, but after you learn the job well you probably won't have to look at the screen as closely. Looking at far distances every so often helps out, but is hard to remind yourself to do.
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Aug 11, 2015 17:13
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Today I overheard the call floor manager tell one of our team leaders "you cannot take an interest in their personal lives because one day they will turn around and stab you in the back" He also doesn't want me arranging callers to make up lost hours because that's just rewarding them for being late or calling in sick 
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Aug 11, 2015 18:00
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krampster2 posted:Are there ways to deal with my eyes watering up constantly? I have messed up eyes that get all teary from staring at a screen for ages even when the screen is on minimum brightness. Please don't tell me I have to wear silly yellow glasses at work. If they are watering up because you are staring for too long without blinking then try lubricating gel drops. They basically create a film over your eyes that prevents them from drying out. The active ingredient is carboxymethyl-cellulose sodium. Just look for that on the generic version. Sticking a post it note with the word BLINK written on it at the bottom of your screen might also be a useful reminder.
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Aug 11, 2015 18:51
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krampster2 posted:Are there ways to deal with my eyes watering up constantly? I have messed up eyes that get all teary from staring at a screen for ages even when the screen is on minimum brightness. Please don't tell me I have to wear silly yellow glasses at work. Silly yellow glasses are the only thing that help me, but they're absolutely worth it. I got prescription ones in a generic frame that are decent and don't make me feel like a ~Xtreme Gamer~
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Aug 11, 2015 20:00
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krampster2 posted:Have worked 2 days now in my new job, today I got swore at for the first time, yay! Some gent called me a gently caress wit which I don't think is very nice or accurate but that's okay. Also had to collect debt from a Vietnam vet and deal with a mother crying about her dead daughter I was trying to contact One thing I heard of is the 30-30-30 rule. Every 30 minutes, look at something 30 feet away for 30 seconds. This helps to ease eye strain.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:02
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I had to post here one more time. I quit Netflix the day after my birthday last month (without a new gig lined up) and I'm now full time at the marijuana grow that hired me. It can happen, it will happen. Also, check your credit card statements right now, there's a non-zero percentage of Netflix's profits that come from people who have duplicate accounts and suffice to say they don't really give a poo poo. P.s. Netflix is never, ever getting Game of Thrones or Dowton loving Abbey. Ever. Also if you can't log in you're just stupid. Ok. Inspector Hound fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 06:33
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I just want Netflix to put up the subtitled MST3K episodes and leave them there Is that so much to ask
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Aug 12, 2015 07:43
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Malachite_Dragon posted:I just want Netflix to put up the subtitled MST3K episodes and leave them there A thousand times this. Deaf people like watching MST3K too, dammit!
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Aug 12, 2015 18:39
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Thanks for the tips, might get me some of those funky yellow glasses after all. I just had the weirdest call, I was calling a debtor and it ended up being an office, I asked for the dude and they said he wasn't there, I asked for the name of the company, and it was our own company, a lady just a few cubicles down from me! I was super confused for a long time and thought that maybe one of my co-workers was in debt and his own workplace was calling him about it. Turns out I figured the sneaky debtor set up his phone so that when we call him, it routes us back to ourselves. I looked through the notes on the file and for a good half a year all the notes were like "wtf!?!? called ourselves?? terminated call." So yeah if you want to get collectors off your back that's how you do it I guess. krampster2 fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 12:37
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Malachite_Dragon posted:I just want Netflix to put up the subtitled MST3K episodes and leave them there Hell, I wish that they'd just show all the subtitles they have available, no matter which country you're in.
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Aug 13, 2015 13:47
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krampster2 posted:Thanks for the tips, might get me some of those funky yellow glasses after all. That's honestly kind of hilarious. I mean, probably not when it's happening to you, but just as a story.
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Aug 13, 2015 14:58
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Jeoh posted:Hell, I wish that they'd just show all the subtitles they have available, no matter which country you're in. On the website you can see what movies have subtitles on what language by putting your mouse over "browse" and clicking Captions and Subtitles or something like that, it brings up a moderately easy to navigate page that lets you arrange movies by desired subtitle language (but nothing else, Merry Christmas non English speakers). The dirty truth is that Netflix gives a bag of money to the distributor, the distributor may or may not ask what version of the movie or show Netflix wants (including subtitles, that scene you swear you remember but isn't in Netflix's copy, and rarely even letterbox vs pan and scan) and even if they do Netflix usually just says "eh whatever you got" unless people make a huge stink. This is why the anime was switching crazily between all dubs and all subs a while back. It's getting a little better, they claim all their content has at least English subtitles, but I got calls from Spanish speakers, French, Arabic, even a bunch of requests for Tamil audio and subtitles, and I don't see that happening until someone in the chain goes "oh, its the internet. Shouldn't we have all languages available for at least subtitles?" You'll also notice there's no Spanish language customer service number. For the longest time, if you didn't speak English Netflix just wouldn't help you, even if the agent you got spoke Spanish (or whatever language). We couldn't even transfer to the call center in Mexico. Before I left, we finally got a number that we could give to people, in English. But we couldn't transfer them and it wasn't 24/7. Basically I wouldn't hold out for those Tamil subtitles.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:53
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