What is the Work of a Call Center?

The sudden inability to speak coherently when a supervisor listens in to one of your calls without warning.

The sexy voice that you fall in love with. Happens generally about every three calls.

The tears of happiness when entering work to be told that the systems are down.

That luxurious tap on your shoulder from your manager telling you to sign out for training or a personal review.

Forgetting the phonetic alphabet halfway through spelling something out and having to meekly say ‘S for Sugar’ as you can’t remember ‘Sierra

The sinister threat from a displeased customer that they will contact the CEO of the company and take their case to the ombudsman and BBC’s Watchdog.

That Monday morning feeling where being cheerful is actually painful.

Sitting beside that one colleague who practically shouts down the phone so much so that your customer thinks that they are speaking to them.

The rebellious jolt in your stomach when you ‘accidentally’ disconnect a call from a particularly awful customer. The furtive glances around the room afterwards to see if anyone has clocked what has just come to pass.

Making empty promises to a customer on a Friday knowing that the weekend staff will pick up the flack and it will be a distant memory by Monday morning.

The powerful sense of injustice and betrayal when you see that Mrs Smith from yesterday only scored you a 6 out of 10 for helpfulness.

The rush of euphoria upon discovering that there is four or five seconds downtime on average between calls and cherishing the moments as if they were your last on Earth

Mishearing a customer for a third time and just typing their name or address as you think you’ve heard it and hoping for the best. Note: This doesn’t tend to work with credit card numbers. They need to be pretty accurate.

That request to speak to a manager and the manager’s well-rehearsed bank of excuses to avoid speaking to ANYONE on the phone. They have worked for this privilege.

That awkward chat about the weather when your system is on a go slow.

That one chatty customer who wrecks your call time stat for the day resulting in you losing your bonus, meaning there’ll be no night out for you on payday.

That colleague who seems to know absolutely everything and tells you what you should have said on your last call.

That sickeningly cheerful colleague who prides themselves on living the company’s values.

Dress down days where buffets are laid out but only managers aren’t too busy to go and enjoy it.

And that insufferable favourite colleague who is always granted time off calls to help decorate the booths for a theme or charity day.

The artistic and illegible doodles and notes on your scrap paper by the end of the day giving a dark insight into your tortured soul.

That one bitter colleague who seems to get away with being abusive and unhelpful to customers without so much as a verbal warning.

Being nominated to have a new starter buddying alongside you and warning them to get out now. While they still can.