Back Into the Trenches

After 6 months away from the Land of Call Center Madness, I have decided to go back.

Before I delve into the reasons for my re-entrance into what many declare to be the worst type of job imaginable, allow me to divulge some background information:

When I was in my late teens, working in various stores in various suburban malls around my metro area for little more than minimum wage, I often thought, upon dialing an 800 number to bitch about something gone awry in my checking account or cell phone bill, that the person on the other end of the line must have the easiest job imaginable. I mean, all this bitter- and jaded-sounding person speaking condescendingly to me has to do is answer a phone all day. And I hear they get paid a lot! How do I find one of these jobs?

To my immediate horror and eventual delight my little sister got a job at a Big Bank in our area, in their call center. She, at age 18, would answer phone calls from the Bank's small business customers and service their requests pertaining to their checking and savings accounts, and also loans, lines of credit, and credit cards. She was also required to participate in what the Bank called "suggestive selling," also known as attempting to convince existing customers to saddle themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars more debt, but she wasn't too concerned with that, seeing as how they would be starting her at what seemed like a huge wage for a kid barely out of high school: $12.27 an hour.

Needless to say, I was insanely jealous, as I was, at the time, working part time at a Big Box retailer for a measly $8.75 an hour.

Luckily for both of us, Big Bank had an employee referral program that gave her money if she referred someone to the company who stayed for 6 months. I interviewed and was hired soon after.

After 6 blissful weeks of the fun and games that made up classroom training, they sent us on our way, to our little cubicles in a cheerful, well-lit 2nd-floor call center, where we would become yet another cog in the system of suggestive selling and cold-transferring our customers into oblivion.

After a year and a half of such nonsense, I simply stopped showing up, determining unemployment and lack of any income to be far preferable to my increasing lack of sustainable mental health and quickly escalating blood pressure, not to mention increasing body mass acquired from hours of sitting on my ass, eating junk food that the call center Powers That Be practically force-fed us in order to placate us into submission.

I wasn't unemployed for long. Two weeks later, I forayed into the cutthroat world of serving at a large seafood chain and found the majority of its customer base to be extremely poor tippers and the management staff to be extremely less-than-forthright about the hours they wanted to schedule me and my fellow employees, and set off to find more stable employment in the industry I knew best, and even liked a little: Banking.

Now, I thought, "I will NEVER set foot in another call center, ever, ever again." I thought, perhaps, that I could use that year and a half of banking experience at the Big Bank to secure a job at another financial institution, where I could make sure I never had to talk on the phone, and could possibly steer clear of any customer interaction, period.

The only place that I sent my resume to that asked me for an interview was Semi-Big Local Bank (SBLB), for the Customer Service position in their call center.

I (obviously) took the job.

Today was my first day.

Like Big Bank (I will notice that many, many things here are just like Big Bank), SBLB has a training class that lasts a few weeks. Upon walking into your training class for the first time, there are many feelings that might go through your brain: Who will I be stuck sitting next to for the next month? Will this be just like school? Will I make friends? Will I be the nerdy one? Will I ask all the stupid questions? Will there be any other smokers there, or will I have to quit because I'll be lonely outside alone?

Well, I walked in this morning about 10 minutes early, and was the second person to arrive. The other trainees/new hires fit the stereotypical bunch of people that generally work in call centers:

The Recent Immigrant or two, excited about what seems to a good job opportunity that can help them with their journey to the American Dream by way of promised "internal promotion" and "advancement opportunity";

The Fucking Weirdo;

The Lower-Income Minority or three who may have a couple of children to support and are ecstatic to have gotten a job without any prior relevant experience or required college degree that pays them more than minimum wage;

The token Near Retirement Age person who, by unfortunate circumstances beyond his or her control, lost their long-term and high-paying career or business and is now forced to find employment elsewhere, and this is their last hope. You can tell them by their collective defeated look;

Three or four College-Age Kids who, upon graduating college bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, realize that their 6-month grace period on their multi-thousand dollar student loans is a week away from ending, and they still can't find job that pays more than minimum wage, so they decide to sell their souls to this financial institution, figuring they only have to do it for a couple months before their superiors determine their degrees to be sufficient reason for advancing them quickly and painlessly into a higher-paying and less soul-sucking position within the growing company.

I most closely identify with the last Stereotypical Call Center Employee, although I never actually finished that degree. I thought I could bypass that little detail by “working my way up.”

We'll see if SBLB proves to be any different.