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TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

Prince Reggie K posted:

To sum up, I'm about 90 percent certain they are firing as many people as possible to reduce costs before finally just parting out the troubleshooting and other tasks my department supposedly serves to the other normal departments. There are 20 of us troubleshooting the entire nation's 3g/4g card users for the client and they aren't hiring any more agents.

My average handle time is shorter than the department average, and my quality scores are higher than the department average. I was ranked 3rd out of 40agents before they fired about 15 of those and 5 quit, two of the quitters were better than me.
What should I do? How long might I have?

Start looking for other work right now. If their organizational culture is making better co-workers start to leave in addition not hiring enough to maintain the load you currently have, they are not going to treat you guys any better and will axe you given the chance to save a few dollars for outsourcing.

Also get the hell out of there for your own health. I took a mental breakdown because the department I was heading got massive cutbacks when I took time off (my Dad passed away) and made me try to do work with 1/5 of my staff gone because they were shifting resources to other parts of the company without telling me at all. It made my best supervisor quit for a job at Staples because it was less stressful. All your company will do now is just work you like a dog and throw you on your rear end.

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TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

noELrunes posted:

If/When he gets fired though won't he qualify for unemployment or will they do anything/everything they can to try to not get him to get any?

I can only comment on my area in Canada (East Coast), but from my experience, Both the company and the government will do anything to make sure you don't get EI. Getting fired does not mean you get EI, you have to be forced to leave in a situation beyond your control. Mine was for mental health reasons, thus allowing me to get back to university.

The turnover rate is so high for call centers here, most EI applications are pretty much rejected if the quit is not even significant enough.

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

For anyone who is or did work for a big telecom for customer service; when in the hell did canceling your services become a massive challenge?

I was on the phone with Rogers for 45 minutess, 25 minutes with a tech support/billing agent who didn't understand I was cancelling my services and kept on trying to get me into another promo with them, then going to his manager to see what he can do. The rest of this time was spend with a Retention agent who just tried to poke holes in my logic and attempted to make me feel bad for dropping Rogers. When she told me that "No one in Canada has unlimited caps for internet, it's a lie" and began to spout this PR garbage, I just wanted cancel even more and move to Bell Aliant. I was glad I did because everyone I talked at Aliant knew what the hell they were talking about and was pleasant on every call I made.

I just kept on thinking how in my call center, when you wanted to cancel, you got shot straight to Retenetion where the best and brightest of Tech got sent to. Retention would just see why you wanted to cancel, try to solve any issues and if not, either give a discount on the service or process the cancellation.

froglet posted:

Helpdesk is getting trained in sales. :suicide:


My old call center's goal was to have everyone trained in tech support and be able to take those calls on their down time. This included IT, Billing, Sales, and Finance. It got killed pretty quick when the accountants and payroll in the company just left and no one got paid for 3 weeks.

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

Glad I remembered this thread existed.

I started with my current employer, a Canadian ISP, as a Account Payable Clerk right out of university 4 years ago. I had depression and anxiety so I was happy for any job after screwing up my interviews with the big 4 accounting firms that came to my university looking for prospects. 6 months into my employment, the CEO was replaced and they begin to shift my department around. They centralized the Finance department and everyone at my location lost their positions. Many jumped ship because the roles they offered were terrible. It was going from accounting to going on the phones taking billing call. I was desperate for money as I got out of school and going back home was not a option.

I started as a billing rep but it wasn't that bad. I keep my hourly rate and I excelled at the role. Then I got offered to do tech support since the company did not have enough people to fill the role due to high turnover from a change in the account management system we used. I signed on because I was a sucker for more money and it was a easy job. Someone in management found out I worked for a web hosting company so I got into doing domain management which cut a lot of time on the phone. It wasn't a bad gig. Then my depression hit a really bad spot. I started to get help and then I saw that my current role was stagnant and that management was turning our contact center into another call center. We were on troubleshooting scripts and losing points on QA for not being peppy enough. Management threw more and more responsibility on senior reps and there was no increase in pay to compensate. I have to take calls for billing, account retention, all our technical platforms at a level 1 and level 2 role, and all our acquisitions and legacy platforms. I get paid the same wage as the person who comes off the street with only training on our newer internet services at Tier 1. They feel time off the phones does not warren a pay increase regardless of the fact they keep piling more and more on us.

Then when I tried to move away from my role, things started to turn rotten. I kept being turned down for positions within the company during the selection stage over and over again. My project time kept getting reduced or cancelled due to increasing call volume. Turnover rates are getting higher every few months and we keep training new billing and technical support classes every month now. My TM and my Project Manager are consistently trying to fight for me to get more time, but now i am limited to 2 hours a day. They let me train someone else help with my domains management but the only reason he was picked was due to him threatening to quit if he wasn't given anything else to do other than answer phone calls. He's pretty much useless but it is all the help I can get.

I currently am waiting to see if I got a new job at another company on Monday that is not call center-related. I really don't want to be in this industry anymore as 6 years is too long for this poo poo.

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

I rather not say anything unless I get the new job. My company is paranoid about what it is said about them by employees.

Edit: I just got the job offer! Only 2 weeks left!

TacticalHoodie fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Jul 25, 2016

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

It's Xplornet Communications. Knowing I will out of there in 2 weeks and into a position where I can use my education with better pay is making it more excited that I should be.

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

Well my call center officially got weird since I gave them my resignation. My Team Manager and Project Manager were happy to see me get a position in my field and have been superstars trying to help me get my project handed off. Others have been kinda dick-ish. Most of my co-workers are slowly finding out and some are congratulating me for getting out of the call center industry. Some are being really petty and are not talking to me because I will not be part of the company in the near future.

The worst treatment is from upper management. They are panicking because they did not except me to leave nor did they think that I was going to leave before December when our web hosting migration was going to take place. They feel like people in projects have a sense of fealty with the company for all the things they are doing for them as it results in time not taking phone calls. HR originally offered me 50 cents a hour more for the same job, which I declined. They then wanted me to show them a copy of my offer which I also declined and asked them to respect my privacy in the fact that I am going to a position that in my field that uses my university education in business administration HR then got me to fill out a exit interview, which I took my time doing because it was the end of the day and I didn't want to go on the phones when we were having another outage.

Then I got called into a meeting by the Vice President of Customer Care yesterday. It was the most awkward 30 minutes of my working life. I was greeted by the VP like I was her friend and she was giving me coffee and protein bars the whole time. She gave me a speech about how Xplornet values employees like family and wanted to make sure I would stay in this family to make it better. She then offered me a dollar raise and as much time off the phones as I wanted with more project work. I asked if the work was going to be related to my field of study and be useful for the career goals I was trying to pursuit. She couldn't give me a straight answer but she told me that I am too important in my tech skills to be given full time positions off the phone. I now know that they have no interest to retaining me for any other role than Front Line Tech Support.

If anything, the meetings pretty much confirmed my decision to leave as being right. I am having my first long weekend in 3 years and I am enjoying the gently caress out of it until Tuesday when the last week countdown begins.

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

Loving how my old employer is still not getting back to me about the 48 hours of vacations that they still owe. 2 weeks of calls and they have not even responded to me. =/

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

I been out of call centers for 7 months but the toll on my mental health from the last 6 years has been heavy. The consistent stress of worrying about being back stabbed, having your day regulated like a prisoner and being overly positive all the time to keep appearances is slowly becoming undone but I already tired to commit suicide a few weeks ago. I was so scared to admit this to my boss as I tried to do this 3 years ago during my first attempt. My old supervisor at the call center took advantage of the situation I explained my feelings and how I needed some time off to deal with things. I could only get to doctor appointments or sessions with a counselor if I played by his rules (aka doing overtime to make his bosses happy) or use my vacation which always got declined by him because it shouldn't be used that way. They did a campaign to get people to remove the sigma of mental health, but it was lip service as they still treated you like poo poo if you admitted it.

Now I work for a regional Grocery chain and I am doing payroll for the retail support warehouse. I talked to my current boss and he told me to take the week off to get things sorted out. I cried because I never had anyone who ever cared about my mental health and trying to get better. My HR manager checked to make sure I had people to talk to if I relapsed and they are working with me to make sure I get to appointments with my doctor and the mental health clinic in town with alt work times on those days. It makes life easier when your employer embraces the work life balance than telling you that they do and then make you a slave to their needs 100% of the time.

I hate to admit it but I should not have been in call centers in the first place. My province (New Brunswick) attracts them like flies with payroll rebates and loans with no payback periods to have these companies come into the economically disadvantaged areas of the province rather than companies that requires a skilled labor force and having to negotiate with them. The Counselor at the mental health clinic told me that she had seen 10x more cases in the last 5 years and the majority of them are from call center employees who are in the phone.

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TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

I really hate running into people who still work at my old call center in public. Ran into a old co-worker at the grocery store today who was trying to sell himself as doing really well in the call center. He just went from Lvl 1 to Lvl 2 tech support which took him 3 years. I got to LVL 2 within 3 months. When he asked me what I was doing I told him my current job, doing Payroll Admin for a grocery warehouse, and he then acted jealous for the rest of the conversation. Then he goes and poo poo talks about me on social media so his call center friends chime in on how he is going to get a position off the phones soon.

It just makes me really glad I got out when I did last year. The job search can be long and the transition afterwards can be bumpy but it is worth it in the end.

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