If there’s no pressure to go onto the next call that’s actually not a bad gig! I’ve never worked at a call center like that, though. Call centers are really hard places to work that pay terrible.
I did tech support back in 2000 for dial-up and DSL. We were outsourced (though still in the US) for a major telco. We would get punished if we took too long on any call. It was always painful when clearly lonely old folks would want to keep talking.
fuck this brings back memories of ‘ok, now check the box that says tcp/ip and then click the button next to it that says tcp/ip settings’
there’s no button
‘there’s no button? uh what do you see?’
I know what a button is there’s no button. I don’t see a button.
“ok, let’s backtrack a bit - describe what menu you’re in”
there’s no button.
I do not miss those days
Weird pronunciations of tech terms that were not well known then was amusing at least. I have to go clear my cashAY
No sales job ever paid per time spent on phone
Anon is trying to be wholesome but has to forge reality in this fucked up world
Spent nearly 10 years working call center jobs, every single one of them had QA people listening to random calls and grading them. If you didn’t stick to the script or try to sell the thing or whatever it was, you’d get a failing grade on the call. Enough of those and you’re gone.
You’re also graded on how long each call takes based on a metric called “Average Handle Time” or AHT which was set by the client based on whatever fucking fantasy they had about how long each call should take.
Fun fact, some contracts I worked on had an AHT requirement that was lower than the amount of time it would take to go through all of their required scripted sales pitches without even addressing the reason for the call. It was literally impossible to get full marks because you either had to skip most of their required scripts, not help the customer, or have the call run long.
what the panopticon hell batman. that would destroy my mental health so fucking fast.
Yes, it absolutely does.
Same (but only 6 months). Min wage + commission. But, during election season, because the company didn’t get commission, they just had the computers run through the lists and have us immediately hang up instead of going through the campaign scripts.
so many wholesome posts and communities attract comments like this, pointing out why it is fake or not actually this wholesome. and I wonder where the healthy balance is between “facts and truth is important, actually; and so is not letting people wholesomewash awful experiences” and “party-pooping on an already-negative, very-happy-to-get-angry-about-politics platform in one of the few positive places doesn’t feel great”
If there’s not enough good or wholesome things that actually exist to create posts about then that’s a big fucking problem with the world. But making shit up just to make yourself or other people feel better is absolutely not the answer. Your comment basically asks “is it bad to gaslight people about the state of the world, or is it actually okay because things are really so bad, and so we should get mad at the people pointing out the gaslighting?”
No sales job ever paid per time spent on phone
Having participated in the marketplace for a while, I am positive this is not true. Have you ever met a sales guy? They love executing on nonsensical strategies.
There’s a lot of dumb money still out there. The term “dumb money” doesn’t do it justice. We should call it “braindead money” instead.
Have you ever worked in a call center?
Medicare Part D was or is a program to outsource prescription insurance for Medicare recipients under Bush 2. It created an absurd Matroska nest of contracts. I worked for a staffing agency to be call center agent at a company that ran pop-up call centers for various insurance companies operating under this program.
I was told my calls were monitored but never got any feedback whatsoever
I used to do some operator work for a major UK telecoms firm.
Because it was free, you had all sorts of people phoning it. A good chunk of them were just old folk who were lonely and just wanted someone to speak to.
It was nice. Some of us had additional roles too and we were generally left alone if there was nothing else to do, so it was nice talking about people’s families and interests, and hearing their voices brighten over the course of five or ten minutes.
Growing old alone must suck.
Growing old alone must suck.
My goal: don’t do that
Best option: Grow old with friends!
Worse option: Develop schizophrenia and never be lonely again!
My goal is finding a challenging hobby to keep myself intellectually active. Being old and lonely might be unavoidable, but being bored isn’t.
Why not find a hobby that keeps you intellectually and socially active? And physically, for that matter.
I too want a hobby that can keep me intellectually challenged
My goal: complete opposite of your goal.
God I hate people.
don’t worry, you won’t even really know because your brain will degrade so fast.
Reminds me of a story where apparently phone-sex workers had to be trained to give emotional support and suicide prevention stuff because most of their customers were just that broken
I went looking for corroboration, but this is the closest I could find.
Very interesting keep going
Now that’s some sex talk
Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby.
Very interesting, keep going.
This is as cute as it is sad.
Surprisingly wholesome.
this shit is basically public service against the loneliness epidemic
sounds like a good idea for an app using LLMs and text to voice.
old people just want to tell their stories. let em, even if we’re not listening.
bonus. we can record the calls and archive them for historical purposes. many of these stories have significance in relation to world events.
edit: I’m conflicted on the response to this comment. part of me thinks it’s an overreaction while another part of me is somewhat pleased that there seems to be a line that can’t be crossed. especially in a world where I’ve been told over and over that if the ends justify the means, the motive is meaningless. 🤷
