After months of being out of work, I've decided that its about time I do something. Yesterday afternoon I went to Transcom call center office in EDSA looking for work, It was convenient that I should look for work in that area given the fact that I'm familiar with the place. At first I thought they need a few guys over that site , since when I accidentally discovered it a week ago the site was still in the process of being constructed. I assumed that the place was understaffed, Hell I was wrong when I got there and apparently word comes in very fast that this newly established site in EDSA would be crowded with job seekers in only less than a month after its opening.
By the time I got there , the waiting area was littered with job applicants and I estimate that there is about a hundred people at least looking for a job. I quickly got down to business and passed my resume to the reception desk , after a few minutes of waiting I was called for the initial job interview. No problems there and got away with it in easy (even though my English speaking proficiency is somewhat deteriorated over the years) .
Next phase was the so called "Versant" phone recoding test , as the name implies - the test was all about speaking and repeating the recorded message on a recording machine. To simply put I'm talking to a machine . During that time a huge portion of jobseekers who arrived at the same time when I arrived were cut down by this test , after that the few of us left we put on to some sort of online kind of test using a PC.
Nothing really much to say on that phase and it felt more on my perception that this kind of test is not a "fail or pass" kind , In fact I think the test was all about being categorized on which specific "account" I'd be put down. By the time it was finished , there were about only 8 of us left on the batch. We had an hour break of waiting . I heard a few gossips on about what's going on in the call center world like a certain company named SITEL not paying social security and all and the reason why Sykes company was so mean on their company security and employees as well. After the wait we were told that a company car would drop us off in another site for the final interview , apparently the site was very far this time and its located deep within the Fontera Verde Compound in Pasig.
So we went there and had the final interview , it was I think near 10 pm when the job application process was finished and all . Of the six of us left , only me and another with a tattoo had made it. The other two gave up easily and went home early after knowing that the interview would start by at least 8 Pm, the other remaining two didn't simply passed the final interview and gave personal issues to the interviewer.
I came home late at night and slept for about an hour or two. Woke up again and went to Frontera Verde Area till 7am till I found out via text message that contract signing was 7Pm and not 7am, Ooops big mistake on my part and hurriedly got back to my home to sleep till afternoon.
By afternoon I've arrange to make another X-ray copy by going to Centro medical diagnostic clinic in marikina , I realized I had to do this and take an X-ray given the fact that my reserved X-ray films (used for medical records) were lost by Sykes several months ago because of HR's stupidity and I only had one left and will be used later on for TRANSCOM employment.
At 5:30 pm I was already there in Frontera Verde for the third time , This time I've figured it all out on how to exactly go there using public transportation - well the Solution all along was that I should take a Jeepney located at Marikina Sports center, The Jeeps destination should be indentified with a sign on its face window saying its bound for "Pasig Palengke" and Tell the driver to drop me off at the location called "Simbahan" afterwards ride another jeep with a sign that is bound for "Citibank". Another option I was thinking (if I feel like kinda energized for a walk) is walk to the east direction and cross the bridge, it should lead me direction to the place were Transcom is located. BINGO !!!
The contract signing went well and I was offered 16,000 PHP basic salary for the so called "Toc-Toc" account from Britain apparently its nature is somewhat cable TV and internet business related. By the way Transcom caters US, Canada and UK country clients .
In other matters to be discussed..
So what do I think of TRANSCOM BPO Company ?! For now I couldn't make any judgment whether this company is a bastard one or a lenient kind, Frankly there are some aspect that I didn’t like about the company and some aspect that I do like about the company .
Some noticeable aspects that I did like was that It has facilities like a billiard table , pantry , sleeping quarters and a shower room (although up to now ,I'm still not be able to determine if the usage of this facilities are for free and for public use for every one on this company). Security guards seems to be a bit friendlier and approachable . HR staff seemed to be always in a hurry and late on schedules but are very courteous and warm, not like the stone cold bastard counterpart of theirs in Sykes.
Some negative aspects I saw for now is their enforcement of an attire, which from I understand is that no denim pants are allowed on Mondays and Thursdays. In other words formal attire for 4 days, disadvantage for me on the fact that I only have one formal pants and I had to wear the same pants for four days. I think they should have more freedom on how people should choose to dress up, of course there's an option were I get to choose to wear any kind of clothes I want to , but the catch is that I had to pay the reception a some sort of "dress down pass" fee of 250 PHP for it.
To simply put the freedom to choose what kind of clothes to wear rest on paying *them* a some sort of "Pass fee" for a month of freedom to wear. This sounds more like profiteering to their very own employees, they also stated that the money will be used for in a charitable foundation. Which I hardly doubt they will use it for such a purpose . Hmmm Really huh ?! And do they expect me to believe that ? What a lame excuse.
As of the moment I have a neutral impression in transcom and I haven't made up my mind yet on how to rate this company.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2012 MONDAY, JOURNAL ENTRY........
General overview of the account I was assigned on was called "Talktalk" United kingdom, Apparently according to the orientation this company in the UK was the second largest communications / Telecom company there - combining Television ,Broadband and phone service at the same time.
Based on the contract I've signed I'm supposedly to be a customer service agent and a technical service rep and a pinch in sales. In other words an all in one "Super" agent , hmmm ??? I wonder why the hell call center companies really put a lot of "parameters" to its agents ? I think TRANSCOM is just short changing on the manpower stuff , in the expense that agents will get stressed a lot - AS IN A LOT. Hehehe guess I better get my vitamins ready anytime, cause chances are working hours will be long. From what I understood TRANSCOM / "TalkTalk" British account is more interested in putting a general purpose agent rather than a specialized type of Agent (Teletech / Big pond Australia account) , similar to the AT&T / Accenture Call Center Policy
As of the moment while writing this there no specific metrics yet for this account , and the QA people in this company is still figuring out on what kind of call "standards" will be put to place. The Account will be handling broadband , phone and TV service and given the broad scope the training will be at least 4 weeks and I assume that it will be a difficult job ahead after the training - if ever I get past the training phase.
Frankly I don’t expect my work life span will be more than 4 weeks and I will eventually get fired after that but at least it will provide enough time for me to get an initial salary and perhaps a back pay for my other agenda's outside the BPO industry and to add more I'm not taking this job seriously compared to what I did in Teletech a year ago.
(By the way , just to keep everyone informed that signing a job contract does not necessarily guarantee employment and that being in the training phase is not exactly employed at all in the call center as what a person may though, chances are most agents still get fired even if you're already in the training phase.)
So what's the impression I got from TRANSCOM ? First thing I got is that working hours are a bit long , as in really long and based on what I heard from the management there is some sort of mandatory or irregular extension of working hours from the usual 8 hours to probably about 10 hours without any good reason at all,
The mealtime and breaks schedules are reduced from the usual one hour break to 30 minutes, the main reason why they said is that it’s a "paid break". Well fine if it’s a paid break but haven't they figured out instead to rather have an hour of unpaid break ? I think they're so much absorb in making profit in their business that they forgot the basic necessities of a person to eat . 30 minutes ?! Heck I haven't even finished digesting my meal at that short time and I had to haul off my ass back to training room (or maybe even the "Floor" area)
TRANSCOM Facilities in Pasig based on my spying includes a Billiards pool area , a TV lounge room, two Cafeteria's , Clinic , Gym room, two shower rooms , two locker rooms , Internet station, and a very own Pharmacy. Floor production areas are a bit small on the floor space and the same goes on hall ways and walk ways , which I assume that TRANSCOM company can only handle a small agent population.
Security checkpoints are not that exaggerated and most security guards seemed to be approachable , though I encounter only one security guard which seems to be rude and ill mannered. I cannot say that This company is as lenient and free as with Teletech but compared to Sykes company (Which I find their policies to be oppressive and brutal ), the agents and employees here are better off. HR staff so far has shows no evidence of crapping on their jobs - though I find them a bit rude in some extent.
For now , I am going to test the shower facilities of TRANSCOM if its free and unrestricted use . I'd post it on this journal on what the results turn out
SEPTEMBER 12, 2012 WEDNESDAY , JOURNAL ENTRY....
To my surprise when I arrived at TRANSCOM building yesterday 8pm (Training schedule was 11pm midnight to 7am in the morning) I saw my former schoolmate during high school nicknamed "Christian the Cat" , He is also surprised as well to see me in TRANSCOM. Didn't had much to have a chit chat with him , just only a small talk then I headed to the showers to test if the facility there was Ok to be used for the general workforce population. Had no problems using it and there were no restrictions , though the shower area is a bit small compared to TELETECH and I had to hang my belongings in the door just to keep them away from getting wet. So far testing and using those facilities was a success.
At around 3am in the morning during the lunchtime , I went to the clinic to retrieve my Comparison X-ray which was given to CLINICA MANILA (pre employed Medical clinic of TRANSCOM) . I was hoping that I could retrieved it there , Unfortunately to my dismay the clinic REFUSED TO GIVE IT BACK and said that it’s the property of the HR department. Really ??? Guess they haven't figured it out that the X-ray Plate I'm referring to it’s the one from CENTRO MEDICAL CLINIC, and those bone head HR thinks its their property - Bah ! They since when MY XRAY plate's became theirs? This HR screw up is going to impact negatively on how I view this company.
It's been just two days and I have now roughly came into a conclusion on how I view TRANSCOM company. If I would rate a company by numerical grade on which 1 is the lowest and 10 the highest grade (a utopian Call center) . I would rate TRANSCOM to be number 4 , I rated number 4 because it has complete well maintained facilities and is free for use by almost everyone working for this company and that the only reason why it got that grade, without those facilities I could have rated it on a much lower grade of 2 . The only thing good about TRANSCOM is the Facilities nothing else - plain and simple , the rest of other things like HR, Security, Company Policies, Working environment, Benefits and compensation, Salary , workload, treatment of employees are just simply Plain Horseshit and not even worth the effort of getting a job in TRANSCOM.
Overall impression is that TRANSCOM is just a transition company and getting a job here is just only for the *Time Being* , not the company worth settling into or building a career. A company that has issues - Serious Issues
Speaking of which I just found out while in the training room that the "Perks" in Working for TRANSCOM is either missing or non existent at all. One example is the Signup bonus or even rejoining bonus for rehires, another one is the simple *perks* like at least a free ball pen or note pad of some sort (which results that I have to bring a pen and notepad every time). Another example is their so called "Tech premium" which amounts to 2000 PHP is apparently taxable - Worst part is that they never mentioned or even stated it on the contract.
In spite a lot of flaws I discovered with this company , I am unaffected of it. Simply because I never care and the only thing I want to this company is the money , Aside from that I'm just only using this as a "Training" to update my skills in the call center and the money for the licensure exam I'd be taking later on. It simply never matters to me and I'm apathetic on the situation.
Anyway the training class I'm currently at is composed of 20 people, all of whom which are "veteran" or has some sort of experience already in handling calls in the call center. For some reason TRANSCOM only hired the one's with an experience and threw out the First time call center agents, Hmm didn't really gave an equal opportunity to all huh ?
Anyway like I said there are 20 agents and 15 of them are male and 5 are females. Overall most of this Wave mate's of mine have a low morale given the circumstances that we are in fact a CSR / TSR / Sales , much more that add weight to them is the fact of the salary that we later discovered is just basically the same as to those existing agents that they have that are dedicated to TSR only. Frankly most of them think that it's unfair given that we are a 3 in one agent and that the scope of support given to us is much more wider compared to those dedicated TSR's . To simply say they are paying us less on the work that is much more. All of us agree on the same thing that TRANSCOM is short changing people. Given the kind of work given to us, I surmise that work life expectancy of a call center here is very low here , probably no more than a year
In Addition.....
Shouldn’t be discussing this since my blog is themed to be specifically targeted a "sailor's" blog, Hell do I care and this is my blog , and I get to put whatever I want with this.
Anyway I am writing this as a part of my identity crisis over being a Telephone Operator and a Sailor. Frankly before I became a telephone operator , I consider myself to be 100 percent a sailor. I told myself from that time that this was just only a temporary job and only went there because I needed the money plain and simple , No hard feelings.
When I first came to this industry , I don’t have the slightest idea on what was going on and had no clue on the technical terms they were speaking with. The first terms that I learned in the call center was this two things called "outbound" and "Inbound" which later I found out that "inbound" means that callers will be the ones calling you over the phone and "outbound" means that me (Telephone Operator) will be the ones calling outside.
Honestly I never expected that I'd be so comfortable in this job. The treatment I received here was humanitarian compared to searching for a job as a sailor. they taught me the skills to speak proficiently in English and was treated with equality , They encourage me to promote my welfare and thus I learned to thrive. It never mattered to them what was my background.
Given the equal treatment and good welfare , there was a point were I had to question on why I became sailor. The lasting legacy that the call center gave me is the skill of being proficient in English, So proficient that some say that they could not distinguish me from an Australian or not, when I'm over the phone.
Up to now still consider myself more of being a call center agent than being a sailor.
But what is exactly the difference between being a sailor from being a telephone operator ? overall there is a very big difference from almost every aspect of these two jobs, From job searching - all the way to salary and job description. A total "Parallel" life running along side by side, It is a blessing that I made it to being a call center agent and I am above the minimum wage earner and that I knew other skills than just plainly becoming a sailor.
Though in some ways that I feel more fortunate that I knew other non-manual jobs, I still have to maintain the secrecy part and never mention to this when I'm sailing. I have learned the crude lesson that without the protection of anonymity I could have easily fall prey on discrimination from other sailor's - I learned it the hard way when I worked on "Stolt Strength", when I openly claim that I was a call center agent before, thinking that it was safe and no discrimination existed onboard an all Filipino crew. Looking back, it was probably a mistake to do so, but I was still innocent of the evils that lurked being an OFW and a sailor. Eventually this resulted to my maltreatment and persecution onboard that ship.
As a part sailor and I am saying this by experience I encountered , That It is of best choice never to reveal any information about myself especially on my background that I am a call center agent and I deny it as much as possible. Don't get me wrong I'm proud being a call center agent as a matter of fact and I am doing this to not only protect myself but other people working on the call center industry - and most of the time lying in the maritime profession helps
( Photos shown below are taken during my survey)
