This is my first time working in a call center environment. I come from the hospitality industry. If anyone had warned me that I’d be taking non-stop calls for 7+ hours with hardly any downtime between calls, I wouldn’t have taken this job. They’ve since updated the job description to say “expect to spend 90% of your day taking calls.” I wish it had said that when I applied. Expect to have mostly angry (rightfully so) callers with very little manager support. I have empathy for days, but wow this gets exhausting. If you’re not taking calls then you’re out of “adherence.” So say good bye to having a minute to breathe after an irate customer screams in your ear before the next calls comes in. I had a month of training which honestly wasn’t enough before they had me taking live calls. Finding a straight answer is basically impossible. One person says one thing, the other says another thing. It’s very hard to help callers when I can’t even track down the most accurate information. You have to go one place for an answer, then to another, then to another. All while having to put someone on hold just to track it down. Every thing I do is tracked and monitored. I have to publicly say when I’m going to the restroom so that I don’t get a message asking where I’ve gone. You’re scheduled an hour lunch (usually cut to half hour) and two 15 minute breaks. You’ll probably get a call that will make you miss your breaks and you don’t get to take them. If a call goes into your lunch, your supposed to take your lunch as soon as you can. But again, then you’re out of adherence. They preach time management skills, but it’s so hard when the calls never stop. Don’t get too comfy with your lead/manager, because there’s a good chance that you’ll be reassigned several times. This makes it very hard to establish a relationship with my lead because it’s constantly changing. Yes, your calls are monitored and recorded for quality assurance. Expect to have to listen to those calls with your lead for “personal growth.” There was a few days where work force management started publicly outing people for being out of adherence. Imagine hundreds of people being put on blast for the whole company to see. It was disheartening and embarrassing to witness. Now people update everytime they have to change a diaper, puke, or any other human thing. Expect to have bigots and racist callers, but you have to help them as long as they aren’t verbally attacking you as a person. Right after training I had over 400 emails in my work inbox. It’s expected that you go through these emails for pertinent information. It’s impossible to do this with zero downtime. Expect to be in a constantly changing environment, rules/regulations change every day and nothing is stable. You will be learning something new everyday. That sounds reasonable until it’s too much to keep up with. I’ve never been burnt out from a job this quickly. I had such high expectations and I keep trying to convince myself that things are going to get better. But they haven’t and it’s doubtful that they will. Please whoever responds to this, don’t tell me to talk with my lead. I doubt they care and there’s a good chance I’ll have a new lead anyway.
