Few days time and
I'd be celebrating my one year here marooned and hopelessly out of options on
how to go back at sea, In the meantime Inspite of this big setback, I choose to
spend my time working in a call center as a form of "Transitional job"
.
It’s a very Good
thing though that I'm an "Amphibious" kind of a sailor and that I do
not entirely relay *economically* working on a ship, In some ways I even think
myself to be more advance in some extent than ship officers. Ironic isn't it? I'm a sailor and yet my skills and traits
have somewhat evolved into a land based type, a sailor that can entirely work
at land and live without being a *sailor* at all.
Being a call center
agent and a sailor at the same time has similarities in some extent. These are
that working environment on both of these are isolated and that they have a
very own self contained community. The call
center I'm working at (TRANSCOM) has an array of facilities that would make an
employee's there live like it was literary a community and shielded from the
outside world. Same goes also in working in a ship though some amenities are
less than those present in a call center.
The funny thing
about TRANSCOM is that it has the complete facilities and amenities for an
employee, As a matter of fact TRANSCOM is the most advance and well equip call
center I had been so far. It is even far more advance than TELETECH when it
comes to facilities, equipment and amenities .
TRANSCOM has four
sleeping quarters (two for male and two for female employees), two shower room
area's , two locker rooms, a pharmacy store, a cable TV lounge area, Four free
internet TV stations, 2 cafeteria's , a very own fast food store (Wendy's fast
food) , a billiard's area, a dental clinic, a bank (RCBC Bank), A baggage
counter area, very own parking floor, and believe or not a playground for
children. These are the amenities an employee get to enjoy and use it for free
at TRANSCOM - I haven't even mentioned yet here the usual standard facilities
that a call center should have.
Anyway here's what
happened at work…
I Arrived early to
submit the necessary paper documents needed by the Compensations and
Benefits department (COMPBIN for short)
, apparently from what I heard once you didn’t get to submit those documents
you wont get your salary - So its IMPERATIVE that I submit those paper
documents as soon as possible to catch my salary. I had no problems submitting
it to them and everything was in order.
Before the training
class starts , I've noticed that some of my co-trainee's were either absent or
late - as in very late. By the time we went to the room , there were only 8 of us. Good thing though
that the class was delayed because our trainer was also late as well and that
the COMPBIN employee visited us in the room to give an orientation about the
compensation and benefits of being an employee here. The rep also clarified the
misunderstanding that even though we didn’t get to submit paper documents on
time , doesn’t necessarily meant that we wont get our salary. The truth is that
were are still able to get our salary along with the ATM card , the only
problem is that they wont be releasing the security pins for the ATM which in
turn we wont be able to get our money via ATM machine. Funny in the fact that
what difference does it get ? To simply put no ATM pin means no money - no
money means no salary right ??? She said our only option left was to get the
money via encashment on the bank counter, period.
After the
orientation , some of my co-trainee's have already arrived and there were now
15 of us.
The lectured we had
in the Training room wasn't that interesting really and "Norman" gave
us a few icebreakers just to keep the boredom away. One of the "Ice
Breaker's" had us divided into two groups and searching and grabbing a
piece of paper at the end of the room - it was an exciting activity and far
more interesting than the lecture.
("Ice
breaker" is a call center term for group activity , as in live physical
activity of any kind )
Two hours before our
training session ends , were we given more password and username log on about
the software tools that we are going to
use on the apparent "live calls" that we are scheduled to handle at
by Monday and Tuesday.
Some of my
co-trainee's including me are taking this activity very seriously, assuming
that we will be monitored by the dreaded QA's . Being in the "product
training" Phase in a call center world is not guaranteed employment at all
and that most trainee's still get fired on this part, especially if this is a
live call exercise were you'd be watched
over by the dreaded QA for close scrutiny , probably looking for
"faults"- literary speaking every call could be your last in
training.
This is the harsh
reality of the call center world in the Philippines , Training Phase is much
harder than the actual job seeking part and I still get to have the possibility
of being fired just because I simply didn't fare well on the training.
30 minutes before
the class ends ,a QA arrived and told us that we should worry about then and
that compared to other QA's in other companies, the QA here is not "Fault
finder's" and that they are merely
coaching staff to give us tips during our job at the floor. I find it hard to believe (or even refused to
believe) that QA's here are different , I've been to so many call centers
before and QA's are pretty much the same - always breathing down on my neck and
trying to find any faults that could be dig up against me over the phone, they
expect me to believe that QA's here are different - ha !!! What a load of
horseshit !!!
In other news …
It's been more than
two weeks since I started working again and I have now remember some of my
co-trainee's here. Here a brief introduction on the people I have worked along
side with here in TRANSCOM
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
"ROSE"
apparently she studied nursing during her
college days , but due to domestic problems finding work here as a nurse proved to be difficult
because of competition - she decided to give call center a try. She always wear
pink colored clothes.
"BADONG"
A lesbian and a
former employee of TRANSCOM (a rehire for short) , she is most familiar with
the in's and out's of this company. Her hair fashion is semi-bald, kind of like
sigourney weaver in "ALIENS 3" movie.
"GWEN"
In first look
appearance you might mistook her as an African American teenager, She is
probably originated in another call center company called "STARTEK"
(funny name for a company).
"DAN"
A large Obese person
and is terribly addicted to drinking coca cola, he's personality is light
hearted and on my personal interpretation a comic relief on our class along
with "CJ".
"ERICH"
An short elderly guy
, that has graying hair on the sides of his head. He always wears a jacket
given the fact the air conditioning in TRANSCOM is set on low temperature (for
Philippine standards), he has a long history in the call center industry and has
probably travelled to Indonesia during his younger years
"JASON"
A thin guy in his
early twenties that always wear a thin formal jacket, he's past exploits in the
call center was in the outbound sales department - a telemarketer for short.
"CHARD"
A well dressed guy,
so well dressed that you might mistake him as a commercial model. He came from
a well known "elitist" school called "LA-Salle" , but
nobody cares here were he came from because call center environment has a
"no discrimination" policy. He's mostly a quite guy sitting in the
edge of the room.
"CJ"
Another comic relief
in this class and without him and "DAN" this group is just another
boring class. He's dresses like a hip hop African American style and has
tattoo's on both his whole arms, He's a huge well built muscled guy and from
the looks of it , you might mistake him as an office bully - He's an ok guy.
"MICO"
Everybody in the
class knows this 28 year old MICO probably because of her loud sexual overtone
comments. Some of us think that "MICO" is a man hungry sexual lustful
girl, and for a girl I might say that she is pretty horny and somewhat a pervert.
She probably came as a directory telephone operator in INFOXX, she's very
skilled in drawing though and like reads weird news on the internet site and
has a simple one track mind.
"MARK"
A guy that dressed
in simple clothes, just denim pants and white shirt and a converse shoes and
that’s about it. He has a very long wavy hair similar to heavy metal punk
musicians.
"ALAN"
An executive guy
from a call center called "STREAM" and was also a former employee of
the notorious "Sykes" call center company. He's been in the industry
for 8 years now.
"RENE"
From all the
trainee's , she's the most season in customer service sales job category and
probably is a smooth talker over the phone, she plans to be a TL someday.
"MCVIN"
A gay guy , that
wears "box" type of eye glasses, he has a funny hairstyle that has a
some sort of pony tail similar to jedi padawans in star wars.
"DUSTIN"
19 year old, probably the youngest of all my co-trainee's here. According to what i heard he originated in new zealand and came here to live in the philippines when he's 16 years old. currently he has an apartment , and was a former employee of the well known call center called "convergys"
"Mars"
Mars is a fat lady that always hangs out with "McVin" , "Gwen" and "Rose" . Nothing much to say about here on the fact that "Dan" always jokes around her saying . "yes my love" or "of course my dear"
That all I can
remember for now n my co-trainee's , I'd post more on those people I missed out
