THANK YOU

Had been quite a while since I logged in and wrote something on my journal, My attention was briefly occupied for a few days taking care of my mom who was sent on the hospital for apparently suffering from chronic kidney disease. This wacked of ride lasted for more than a week as mom got hospitalized and confined over it. Initially the doctors though that mom had to be strapped and hooked up to the dialysis machine just to save her life, fortunately further lab results test showed that will not be the case although it was obvious that mom had indeed had problems related on the kidneys.

My younger sister was definitely and no doubt a big help in getting mom out of the hospital, and took care of everything even the financial aspect and some medical decisions to be made. If it were not for my sister then mom could still have been stuck up to now on the hospital and I'm still left figuring out what to do next.

 I would also like to thank "Uncle Panong" (Mom's cousin)  whom helped us voluntarily and given us some tactical decisions overall , especially in the hospital expenses where it ballooned to about 6800 PHP for the medical ward. He helped us in going through the social services and reducing the medical bills to almost zero. Frankly I never pay attention much to "Uncle Panong" until now and I do thank him a lot for helping us.

Anyway in other news

So how is the government hospital overall? To be quite honest , I don’t want to go the hospital if ever I get hospitalized. Being hospitalized in a government hospital in the Philippines is one of the worst things  a person could ever imagine in health care .

The doctors and medical staff are rude and ill mannered , I even saw one doctor shouting to her patient who is in near death at that time, plus doctors even avoid treating their patients and letting them rot in the hospital bed. Another thing is the facilities which looked more like a backwater motel rather than a full fledge hospital , the so called "Charity" ward isn't exactly free and cost as near to that of a "Pay" Private ward and the so called charity ward has no electricity at all to start with and no proper ventilation. Nurses most of the time forget to adhere to medications that are to be given to their patients like insulin and such, and even in some cases are rude to their patients and the patients relatives.  And another thing is that they even make it mandatory for the patients to buy and shoulder the cost of medical equipment that was intended to be free and a standard issue, I have no idea why patients have to buy their own dextrose, syringe, needles, glucose strips, plastic tubes and such etc.

To be honest I cant recommend at all a government hospital for healthcare. The only reason that people come there is the misconception that it was supposedly free . Little do the helpless patients knowledge that if they would compare their medical bill to that of a private hospital care it would cost as much as the same and with less worries. 

NOT FOR THE BETTER

Garden at a public hospital , Glad they took some time for the ambiance  

QA reports on my calls haven't been turning out positive and for some way I always get  mark down on almost everything on my calls. Anyway what is to expect on QA's right ? Their job as far as I know is to make life more difficult in the call center , and it's their job to hunt us down and be a fault finder.

According to the reports I received I already have a mark down for D.P.A. (verbal Password to be asked on the caller during the call ) twice for the record and that If received another , then it will be the final before getting fired, Well I guess that's the way of life in the call center and that sooner or later I'd get caught by the QA one day when I'm really having a bad day and be summarily fired without any due process.

Newly opened McDonald's  beside my house , soon I'b be eating my way to happiness

 Quite honestly I'm not bothered at all by this and practically speaking I'm not staying here in TRANSCOM for long periods (though I cannot leave yet till have full preparations set), I just see the working environment here to be deadlock and restricting for any call center agent to flourish.

Since I'm not doing so well on work , I had now started securing a few things which include money, medicine, food etc. incase in the advent of the possibility of being terminated on work in a ,much sooner basis. I had to take preparations for an unscheduled departure and the transition period of unemployment time from TRANSCOM to another company.

As what I mentioned on this journal and from my previous entries , Being in the call center is not exactly a permanent basis but more of a "transition work" while I'm sorting out my issues in the maritime sector.

In other news related to work….

T.L "John Rivero" informed us that the site of TRANSCOM in EDSA needs about 190 agents to fill in to the vacancy there  and relocated would be relocating agents from here to there. Immediately after announcing it to the group , "Dustin" , "Rene" , "Mark" , "Gwen" , "Mcvin" sent an email to T.L. "John Rivero" on their intention to join the  EDSA TRANSCOM bandwagon. While me and "Rose" decide to stay here. According to T.L. "John Rivero" the transfers will be effective immediately on December 10 , So I guess it's only me an "Rose" that will be here and be folded up on a much larger group. The original group of Talktalk Plus TV Wave 4b will be splintered into two.

My reasons why I decided to stay are personal and economical , Personal in the sense that I don’t have good relations with the my co-workers and it’s a relief  that I'd be rid of them soon. I just don’t like working with people who contradict me on my decisions and interrupt me while I'm in the middle of calls and just to add more I don’t like working to people who say a lot of things behind my back and think they're high and mighty just because they supposedly knew better . Ugh ! I had enough of those kind of people when I worked at sea years before. DON'T GET ME WRONG I'M NOT ANTI-SOCIAL , I JUST DON’T LIKE WORKING WITH PEOPLE WHOM I DON’T LIKE - PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

2nd reason why I decided to stay is on the economic / financial part. Lets face it ! The transportation cost going to PASIG TRANSCOM is three times much less compared to EDSA SITE, In PASIG I only get to spend 19 PHP going to and from my house , while in EDSA site I'd be spending as much as 60 PHP on the cost of transportation alone. So if I plan to spend extra on food or other stuff expect that I'd be losing more than a 100 PHP a day. It will be disadvantageous for me to be relocated there on the financial part.

However despite the possibility of being transferred to EDSA has more disadvantage, there is in fact an advantage on it in some was. It's main advantage is since its in EDSA then its in the middle of a business district and than in the even that I'd get to be fired or leave TRANSCOM , I can easily replace my losses and go to another suitable companies and if ever I get decided to go back and look for a shipping company the "transportation time" going from TRANSCOM to other companies is much less than being in PASIG

For personal news.....

Currently i'm in the hospital watching over mom who got hospitalized yesterday (or was admitted to the hospital) , apparently the reason while she was admitted was because of high creatinin levels in her blood stream (some sort of thing related to kidneys, high levels means that kidney is failing) . Based on the previous lab results the levels were three times as high as a normal person should have , which basically explains why mom is having "swollen" foot for a month now. My worse worries is that mom may suffer the same fate as Aunt milen who is now on a full stage kidney failure and now undergoes constant dialysis every now and then . For now my sister and I are doing our best to keep the situation controlled and take care of mom in the hospital until she gets a bit better

Mom confined on a Public Philippine Hospital , To be honest , off the record - one of the worse places in the world to have medical treatment with. 

CHURCH OF TRANSCOM

Who could have ever thought that I had lasted this long in TRANSCOM, Up to now I am still absorbing the details on my mind that I had made it past the "Nesting Phase" even though my Stats in work were the lowest on all the seven remaining agents in the group. Yes hard to believe even in the logical sense that I had been accepted and endorsed to work in the production floor , as a matter of fact my working status was even the subject of discussion between "Norman" and some unknown guy from the brass for a week , Deciding whether or not I would be fired.

I guess the overall decision that made me to be kept around by TRANSCOM was the fact that I had a perfect attendance , as in no absences or late in training ( that is what "Norman" said to me) beyond that I could just be added to the numbers in attrition rate (employee's fired).

My newly purchased Andriod tablet

Honestly my primary mission here at TRANSCOM is just to stay for a month, no more than a simple "digging and mining" mission afterwards I'd go back to finding a job elsewhere  maybe even take the licensure exam for a change - I had no idea that my mission would extended beyond the simple one month and yet I'm grateful that they did kept me around. I had never made a mistake in coming to them , they offered me so much more than what I need.  This had opened me a lot of possibilities in life, things that were somewhat previously limited when I was a sailor.

Who knows? Maybe when things went fine up to summer , I could enroll again in college and take a second college degree preferably marine engineering. I may not be working "seaborne" but at least I could still be productive in life and take schooling again.  Despite the failures I had , I'm somewhat hopeful that things would turn out positive to the least.

In office news …………...

A new face will be showing out in replacement to our temporary Team lead "Norman" and will be our permanent T.L. for good. He's name is "John" but we call him "J.E" or T.L. "J.E." for short.

According to the background "T.L. John " said to us when we met him , he was from an American Account in a BPO near S.M. MOA site and got hired here as a T.L. and started to work when he was still 16 years old. On first impression he's enthusiastic and cheerful guy (though I'm still holding out my judgment on him since I'm a cautious person and I've seen people who are friendly at first then later on become a monster). He's well experienced in handling people and doesn’t get ticked off easily by rude customers.

My new outfit "college kid" outfit

In other news related , by next two weeks the teams schedule will change from 11pm - 8am schedule to 8pm to 5am work time. This is of course based on what T.L. "john" said to us and it was verified on our Empower Citrix System, Apparently the change of schedule was made by the brass to see on how well we go in queuing time since were out of the Nesting phase. Well there's no harm to that and still will not conflict if I had urgent agenda's that needs to be done by the day.

For the working part , well I could say that I'm trying hard to drop off my nasty habit of disconnecting customers especially if I get pissed to them.  I guess it will do me a lot of good that as much as possible I should not disconnect calls.  Speaking of which I think "Gwen" caught me one day disconnecting calls , of course I tried to deny it as much as possible and I'm not bothered if I get caught , I just thought to myself that if I do disconnect calls then does she have a problem with that ???

One thing that really ticks me off to pissing mood is the lack of privacy of my coworkers and they go as far as eve's dropping my calls and contradicts everything on what they hear when I'm in the middle of work taking in calls. I doesn’t matter if I'm doing something wrong or not , what I meant to say is that they should mind their own business - and if they don’t have anything better to do , then they should pray on the rosary ,

Honestly speaking "Gwen" is a bitch when  she meddles with my work , and so is "Rene" whom had been pissing me for more than a month now. Good thing I know how to handle this people and tell them to back off and mind their own business.

On work performance…

Though occasionally I may seemed to be doing well and fare at first look , overall and in general things are going to be in a downward spiral for me. I just received two memo's from the QA within a week and both of it are as what is said to be "Critical Fail" which meant that it failed miserably on the standards set by the company , what's worse about it is that the next memo I'd be receiving will put me on the status of being fired if the issue still is the same. On top of it according to the company standards , it will stay on my records for nine months and will remain even after I made it past the six month "Regularization" period.

Goya Philippine cholocates , ive been eating during break

Honestly I'm not really bothered at it at all even if these so called Company working standards are a bit steep for  a normal call center agent  such as the AHT Score being only 10 minutes, This maybe normal for a CSR but in a TSR / CSR job category a 10 minute AHT is a bit short and not fit for a troubleshooting TV / Broadband System related issues. I should remember overall that these job is not exactly the permanent kind and that I'm only here in the first place is because I needed the money to start over on my sailing profession. I find that part to be very dismaying and no matter how much promises are made by TRANSCOM that this account is "easy" , I still find it to be a far cry from TELSRA Australian Account I handled years before. "Easy" for a CSR job category in some extent but a total bullshit for a "TSR / CSR" agent.

For now the job tactic I had been putting into is a "trail and error" one, not a very efficient one at all to be honest  and most of the time (or for the most part) ended up having more failed calls in the process. It's a painstaking kind of work tactic considering TRANSCOMS expects us normal agents to be "superstar Universal Agent" . Despite the failed calls and pummeling metrics  ,The only good news I could come up with is that the TRANSCOM System had a weakness . To be specific they don’t have any "screen shot" capabilities, just sound recording and that they couldn't tell what I'm doing on my computer screens. They have basically no idea's if I'm using the software tools as well and that they heavily relay on the "History Notes" in "TRIO System" rather than simply verifying it on the logs made on other software tools. In other words they couldn't tell if I disconnected the calls intentionally.

Pond's cosmetics ive been applying on my skin

So how am I going to exploit this weakness I just found recently ? Well for the brighter part I could intentionally get rid of pesky customer's without them even noticing and I could come up with a few ways to dispose them making it look more like "the customer is impatient and rude" . Upon my discovery of this weakness , It now explains it and adds up that despite the huge number of calls I had disconnected ever since I started being on the production floor none of them showed me disconnecting calls intentionally or even proved to have a direct evident that I'm disposing customers by cutting them off. QA could only detect the wrong decisions  I made on the phone and they were not even sure that if I'm using the Software tools correctly.

RENDEZVOUS WITH CAREER

Terrible long line of applicants in Career 

Upon the insistence of my dad that i should look back and explore possible companies out there that might accommodate me in the maritime, I did went out to look for another.

My only link to this is either my Uncle Mel thru Scanmar shipping company and another named Capt N. Betts from Career Philippines Ship management. Since the previous company i went to look for a job didn't even bothered to call me or at least get my papers, I could only guess that Scanmar Shipping Company is not going to take interest in me, After all its been 11 months passed since my resume was put in their office and they never even got the trouble to at least notify me if I got the job or not. 

I guess the rumors i heard that Scanmar Shipping being a bastard company might be right afterall ,

I should have known better......

D/C employees waiting for "quasi militaristic training" 

Anyway now comes the 2nd option and see if Career and "Capt, Nick Betts" words are 100 percent gold. I had been waiting for almost a year with "Captain Nick Betts" just to refer me to his company. And now the time has come to join and see if this second plan of mine works. It was a great opportunity for me that "Capt Nick Betts" was around and was willing to refer me to his company called career.

Immediately I went to dress myself after the SMS I got from "Nick" that he'd fetch me up on Masinag market and after that I took a jeepney to proceed to masinag, waited for a few minutes there until he arrives in a Red Nissan Centra. I quickly hop into his car and he said that were going to fetch in another guy in Santolan , by the time we got there a cadet joined in the car. We drove off a few minutes and passed by cubao till the makati area.  In the area near alpha land mall , "Nick" lost directions and we got lost for a few minutes , and circled the area in pasong tamo twice before finally figuring out that he should take a right turn to go thru Evangelista street in Makati.

When we arrived , we were joined in by another guy in the Jollibee fast food, so that counts the number to four people which is "Captain Nick", Me the OS , "The Messman" and the "Deck Cadet". A few moments later we went to Career Philippines Ship management and talked to the guys responsible for new recruit's called "Mr. SO" , we went to he's office. I'm  not sure if Mr. SO is a Korean or a Fil-chinese , because on the first look I would think he is either of the two.

 In any case from what I do know is that this "MR. SO" is a maritime academy graduates ( guys who are cold, vengeful, sadistic, jealous bastards expect no less). Based on the conversation with him and "Captain Nick"  he was reluctant to accept both the "Messman" and "Deck cadet" , apparently from my understanding Mr. SO also a racist who degrades people that do not originated from his maritime academy - anyway that's not a surprise to me, most academy bastards are just like that , megalomaniac freaks.

Upon the three that "Captain Nick" introduced in the office , I was the least (if not wasn't) ridiculed at all given that among the three I was the highest rank and got a BS degree. Another thing I guess that I wasn’t ridiculed was because I dressed a bit better compared to the "messman" and the "deck cadet", So well dressed that I think I intimidated Mr. SO ,

A few minutes later we were given applications forms for interview and was given a scheduled to meet Mr. SO again by Monday for the job interview . I'm not sure though if things will work out by Monday , but I'd keep it posted .

"Messman" was dropped off at MRT station in guadalupe , while "Deck Cadet" was dropped in santolan station LRT2 , I was dropped off in Sta. Lucia in mall in Cainta Rizal.    

On monday ..........

The "Messman"  (Randy Navarro) and I went again to Career Philippines Ship management to report back and pass our application forms, It was around 10 am when I got there and got an appointment slip.

Lunch time went and there was no sign of me and "Messman" , being entertained and I guess "Captain Nick Betts" was right that we have to wait patiently for about 8 hours before being entertained. We took lunch at the small makeshift store right beside the company building, then headed back to Career Philippines Ship management office at around 2pm. It was a long tiring wait and I was already beginning to feel the effects of fatigue and to add more I'm starting to have thoughts that applying to this company is a bad idea after experiencing they're so called "Hospitality" (in which I had to wait 8 hours before finally being entertained)  ,

 at about 4:45 pm finally my name and the "Messman" along with two others were called on the office of "MR. HO" .

The first few minutes that went by in his office was not exactly a job interview but more like a simple 3 minute conversation were Mr. HO just summarily turns down the job applications of two others without even looking on their resumes and documents, Mr. HO as what I best described is a cold vengeful sadistic snobby bastard ( typical attitude of people who graduated from The Philippine Merchant Marine Academy). Even my companion "Messman" was given the summary decision , By the time it was my turn to be interviewed I quickly gave him my application form  and said quickly  that I was with "Captain Nick Betts" last Friday and was told by you (MR.HO) to pass this to you by Monday.

Hard to believe that these kids will be in for a lot of hardship under filipino hands , Some of them will face cruelty and maltreatment from they're filipino compatriots . Shame that they have to go on a fascist , quasi militaristic job. maybe someday Maritime industry will be no more here 

It was a decisive move I made and prevented me from being given the "3 minute summary decision" thing. The next thing Mr. HO gave me a piece of paper with a drawing in it , he said that I should write down what best describes this picture and that I should write it in more than a hundred words and in perfect English grammar. I accepted the paper and immediately went to work , It took me only few the task and unknown to Mr. HO , my English language proficiency is very high given the fact that I am a Telephone operator in a call center.

I passed my test papers and Mr. Ho couldn't find any "holes" on my grammar and English writing skills.  Then came the interview which was very obvious that it was a one sided conversation, from what I recall Mr. HO was making up a lot of petty excuses just to get rid of me, I even recall him mistook and saying that he can't accept my application because my cadetship was made on the interisland ship. WHAT THE FUCK !!!! Since when did served in the Interisland Ship ??? Bastard didn't even looked on my Seaman's book to verify . When I heard him say that , I didn't know if I was going to giggle to laugh on his ignorance or be furious because of it.  Anyway I did corrected him and said that It doesn’t mean that I went to a Philippine flag means also that the ship is interisland. When I said that , I could giggle on the look on his face knowing that I contradicted him.

To avoid anymore nasty conversation , Mr. Ho said that the application will be considered and that I just have to report here in the career office every now and then and dismissed me.

I do know better that he will just throw my application form in the trash bin after that and that you cannot have someone's word for it and that he's only saying that to save grace knowing that this OS is more smarter than your average grunt.

Some people might think that being a sailor and working seaborne is paradise, Hell they have no knowledge that paradise isn't what exactly as what you think it is. There are a lot of bastards here and if you don’t fight back or be at least street smart , chances are people will take advantage of it and abuse it. There are a lot of these people in the maritime industry in the Philippines , far more worst and more sinister than Mr. HO out there . PMMA and MAAP people are a bunch of militaristic , racist facist pigs !

THE FEW LEFT

Changes in schedule has brought me to around 11pm to 8am shift, and there are only a few calls in UK during that time period (equivalent to 3pm to 12midnight). And as a result I only get to have very few calls during that shift and tremendously long avail time. The "Avail" time was so long that the recorded time was beyond an hour.

According to "Norman" this schedule will be put on the run for us for about several months, which meant that were stuck having long avail times, until someone from opts figures something out on our schedules. Not that I'm complaining , I think having long avail times are quite great and relieves stress  , however too much avail time is too bad also in call center agents as most of them get lazy and arrogant and in some rare cases pick on other agents.

During this week , our group suffered yet another lost  and two agents got fired,  It was "Badong" and "Chard" that got hit this time. It was a tough decision for "Norman" to inform them that they are going to report to the HR , but things had to be done and they have incurred too much absences and late's on work schedules and it was obvious on what things will turn out for them and sooner or later they'd be fired from the job. I guess they knew that they had it coming.

It was very cruel of TRANSCOM to let them not even finish their job shift first

Anyway since our group currently is just composed of 6 agents (including myself ) there is a rumor going on that we might get folded up and consolidated on the wave Talktalk Wave 3B just to fill up some extra vacant space , as of the moment the only thing I could comment about the rumor is that were working alongside with them and even share the same working station area with the same temporary Team Leader (Norman) and with the same working schedule. I will find out later on if indeed there will be a "Merger" of the two groups.

So how am I doing on this past week on work ? To be quite honest , I'm not doing so good and I'm fighting a losing war here and its only a matter a time before  I get fired . My performance is getting poor as I speak, and its in a downward spiral path.  For now the only Tactics I've been doing on calls is the "Hit and Miss" scenario, A trail and error phase as one might put it, and its been a very inefficient tactic in taking in calls. There were a significant number of calls that I solved in a wrong fashion and my stats is pummeling down steadily ,but what can I do right ? Its just that this account has a lot of problems given the broad scope that was put upon  us agents . Overall my progress was very little and that I think (based on the stats I had viewed) I will be fired by the end of nesting period , I'm the lowest on all the stats.

Anyway I did learned something that’s a bit useful , and that is the procedure on how to transfer calls from another department via Cisco Telephony . On what learned from the floor walker is that I had to press 9 first before adding the internal number's department ( example  91234556789 rather than just 123456789 only) . Honestly I'm thankful I've learned on that part but the problem is by the time I learned it , I was midway (2 weeks)in the nesting phase and had accidentally disconnected a lot of calls before I learned this procedure

Myself Taking the call and live in action on the job

 Honestly I'm not good as a CSR than a TSR and that realizing that I signing up as both of these is very disheartening , I am taking up a CSR / TSR / Tech 1 / Tech 2 job position with a 16K salary cap in it here , while other employees of TRANSCOM are just a dedicated CSR or TSR level 1 and yet they get the same salary as I have. This is outrageously unfair on my part that I had a lot of tons of workload put on me  while the others just enjoy little work and being paid on the same amount of salary,

 This lowers my morale tremendously and much more on the fact that my co-workers and I hate each other. The only good reason that I'm still staying on the job is purely financial reason and that I need to keep this dragging on to maximize the amount I could siphon for my future maritime agenda's . The truth is I'm not exactly bothered at all that my stats is the lowest of all nor the fact that working relations at the office is slowly deteriorating. Somehow I'm not taking this seriously and I don’t really care much on what happens next after Nesting phase.

For now I have a very low morale , its so low that even my work in TRANSCOM is affected and I'm wouldn't care less about anything aside from the money . I'm so dishearten that I'm reverting back to my old habits of disconnecting callers intentionally , believe me my performance is greatly affected by working relations

Honestly this job is one of the most difficult I had handled in the call center not because of the job itself but with the working relations and that the only compensation I was getting is the fact that I'm taking to British people rather than American customers. The rest is just plain old crap.