8 day work week

Where else can you get this kind of work environment but in the Philippines, The call center I work for gives me 8 days of work.

No rest day after the 5th or 6th day.

Some guys even get 9 days straight or 10 days straight without a rest day.

The Depart of Labor and Employment should look into this, this is unfair labor practice.

I would transfer if had the chance. The thing is in this call center you only get 4 to 15 calls a day only, that's why people stay instead of leave.

Have you ever been ignored by your co-workers?

If you haven't experienced this yet, well good for you. But if you've been ignored by your colleagues that's too bad. That means you did something wrong in their eyes: , or you have unknowingly crossed the line.

What people usually do in this situation is think and trace back in their minds if they did something wrong.

But what good will rethinking past events do if your co-workers hate you or is ignoring you? You really can't do anything about it. Simply go on with your life in the center and don't f*cking mind them.

If they f*cking ignore you, ignore them back but don't blurt out nasty comments, just keep quiet.

Don't fight back.

If you need to talk to a friend about the situation, do so in order to keep your sanity.

Don't be paranoid if people are ignoring you. Simply stop talking to them. They don't f*cking own the call center.

Remember that there are other people in the call center you could befriend. Simply forget about those f*ckers.

Your kingdom has no boundaries [Shee Nahd]

You have no f**king right to tell me what to do b**ch you are not even my boss... So what if the clients are coming as long as I am not doing anything wrong you don't have the fucking right to boss me around. You better take care of your people not me, don't you see they are resigning one by one because of your f**king attitude. You boss around your team, you push them around, you stretch them to their limits, and you ask too much of them that's why most of them already resigned. You started with 12 team members, and now you only have 6, half your team is already gone. Those who remain either doesn't have anywhere else to go or they don't want to go through the hassle of applying for another job.

You focus too much on yourself, not on your team, what's important for you is your team's
numbers. You don't care about your agents feelings, as long as you hit the stats everything is fine with you.

If you ask your people if they would rather stay with you or go with another team they will say they'd rather be somewhere else in a heart beat.

How do I know? Because I talk to them, and I talk to them the way a human being should talk to a fellow human being that's why they tell me.

Dress Code BS

It’s hard to implement a new guideline specially when there is already an existing guideline. In this call center the guideline before was to go to work in your casual wear, and this has been going on since the business started. You can literally go to work wearing jeans, T-shirt, and snickers.

But just recently the management rolled out a memo advising all employees to go to work in their “SMART CASUAL” wear. They defined “SMART CASUAL” by not wearing torn jeans, slippers, t-shirt, mini skirt, etc. But they did not exactly define what to wear.

The guards were even instructed not to let anyone on the call floor if they are not in “SMART CASUAL” attire. But the guards doesn’t even know what “SMART CASUAL” means. Let’s see what the dictionary has to say about smart casual:

A lot of agents were extremely dissatisfied with this new guideline, because they had to suddenly adhere to this new rule. But there where some people who still went to work in their regular outfit but the guard did not stop them from coming in.

Introducing the Call Center Professor

He says he was a professor, but now is working for a call center that's why he can't help to give lectures during his team meetings, by the way The Prof is a TL [team leader]. Most of the time he nails the topic right on the spot and keeps you listening until the end of the lecture/meeting. One time he would start talking about Kama Sutra and then would end up talking about his team's metrics and the scores, at first I was really annoyed with The Prof but as I listen to his philosophical add ons I slowly understand his being.

He does the lecture/meetings probably because he misses the classroom but doesn't want to leave the comfort and the salary of the call center. I can't blame him, he's earning 50K a month.

Do You Have a Mr. Deetee Burpking In Your Office

He is very knowledgeable about the account, he knows the ins and outs of the account but he doesn't take care of his agents, he may knows the information but he doesn't know how to relay it or worst yet he doesn't want to impart it. He wants you to fix things on your own even if the call gets escalated. Ask him a question and he will say "huh"? or will he burp at you as if he did not hear anything.

He also has favoritisms, if you don't ask a lot of questions while he is doing the task that is delegated to him by his OM he will reward you with something, usually something sweet.

But what is his primary function as an SME [subject Matter Expert]? Isn't he suppose to answer all your questions if you ask him, doesn't he need to help you when you don't know what to do. that's his function right? He is supppose to be the walking Knowledge Base of the agents on the floor correct? But the thing is he doesn't walk the floor he simply stays on his station and monitors the service requests of the agents, checking if there is a discrepancy somewhere in the interaction.

One of his duties is to train his agents about new updates, but what he does is he hands over a piece of paper with all the info and then says "yan ah basahin mo yan..." [read this ok...]. And if the agent gets in trouble because the agent doesn't know the new updates he will say "diba na train ka na...!!!" [I already trained you...!!!]

How would you feel if you where an agent under Mr. Deetee Burpking? Wouldn't you want to smash his f**king face with your fist or slam him with a chair?

That's Mr. Deetee Burpking for you, do you have a Deetee Burpking in your office?

On my next post I'll introduce The Professor

Black Valentine

We were advised to wear black instead of red. This kind of thing makes me think of the people in this call center, they kick out people without proper due process. Hey Boss is this some kind of a protest for all shitty the things that happened here? No Coffee, no water, no sugar, discrepancy in the salary, and a lot more other things that I don't want to remember. Before I forget I will talk about Mr. Deetee Burpking in my next entry. Happy Valentines to all of you guys...

You Can Never Be Too Careful

Even if you are really careful with what you are doing you might just get dinged!!! So Document all your calls or transactions. If you are taking in calls on a weekend be extra cautious, the clients might just be listening in or worst yet the clients might be the ones calling your site, checking if everything is fine offshore.

So if you want to curse, make sure the Avaya's on mute. If you want to use the computer to surf or do anything on the net make sure to use a proxy server, delete the cache and the cookies, and of course use a trainee log in. In other words be safe, cover your ass or better yet don't mess up by being law abiding all the time.

The OM Wannabe

Let's call this guy Mr. CeeVee Nitpicker. At first it was hard to DICIFER why this colleague checks the stats all time. He checks the stats not everyday but every time he has the opportunity. These are stats that are being sent to the whole account. I thought he was simply a complaining nitpicker whose happiness lies in knowing the inadequacies of his co workers until I had a chat with him in between calls. I asked him why he hasn't applied as an SME or a TL. he said the doesn't deserve the position and that there are more deserving people, but he said with a straight face "I'd rather become an OM" [Operations Manager]. I was surprised at what he said, he is either crazy or simply joking about what he said because even before he is considered for an OM interview he would need to have the experience to handle an account. If he really wanted to become an OM he should at least become a QA, SME, or TL first before he even considers becoming an Operations Manager. Only time will tell if he becomes an OM. I will update you about this person if he ever makes it.

Hey OM, is your inbound call center site over staffed?

What if you don’t have the stats in front of you how do you know if the center is over staffed?

Your agents might be doing one or two of this things:
- chit-chatting for long periods of time
- surfing the net
- reading books
- playing silly games on the floor
- sleeping

Be wary you might be in the verge of closing down, check your stats, check your incoming calls, check your counter parts in other countries they might be getting all the calls or something is cooking up that you don’t know about. A disaster might be waiting to happen. If you feel something terrible is about to happen take immediate action, do what ever it takes to pull up your scores, talk to your superiors and discuss the situation to them, talk to your TLs.

If having all this avail is killing your revenue take appropriate action, if you need to transfer some agents to another account do so, in order to save your account. Do the math, do what it takes to keep your program. Availing is good for your agents but it’s an indicator that something might be seriously wrong.

Bio Break Explanation [Just Incase]

Sometimes when you take your personal break it takes longer than expected.
I don't use my bio break to smoke in the smoking area.
Nor do I use it to run away from calls.
I took my bio break because I needed to use the toilet and release some s**t.
As most of us know, when you are awake during the night your body clock is messed up
thus it also messes up your bowel movement.
If it is an offense to go on over break because it took you too long to use the throne,
what do I say? What do I do?

Text or Call if You Can Not Go to Work

Always have your cell phone or your phone book handy specially if you won’t be able to go to work.

I have no cell phone, I lost it a few months ago and I have no plans of buying another one.

Fortunately my bro has a cell phone. I texted the office, I told them I won't be able to go to work...

Good thing I had the bosses cell phone number in one of my phone books.

I know that everybody knows that they you to either text or call the office if your not going to work, but what if you are in a remote location and there is no signal, how can you text or call?

This was the alibi of one agent who got terminated. The agent said he was unable to text or call because of the said reason. I know that there are still places in the country that can not be reached by technology but if I was the agent I would have texted or called my boss before I lose my signal. This smart ass agent should have atleast informed his TL before he went to that g*d forsaken place.