I hate call centers!

Quote: Evenbob

I hate being in a store and being asked
if I'm finding everything,

I hate it when I am asked this at check-out, meanwhile there was zero help out there on the floor itself. Oh, sure, now that I am ready to check-out, I want to hold up everybody else in line and wait myself while some slow-to-appear dooffus gets into gear. If I needed something that bad I would get help before I showed up at the cashier, knucklehead!

Problem is, I want so bad to say all that, and I look at the poor cashier, at a job she doesnt like, knowing she is blabbing that because she is required to.

So I have to hold it inside.

Being a bigot probably doesn't help, but it's natural to be annoyed. Especially when you want straight answers and not bull.

Quote: terapined

Just had another group of coworkers transfer from the office to working home.
As a call center, we are way past the 50% mark of working from home.
Now up to about 70% now work from home.
Getting lonely in the office. A lot of empty cubicles.
I still enjoy the morning bike ride to work.
Still enjoy the office buzz and conversations. Still have about 70 people in the office

Not bad, still I wonder how well training holds up. It is the softer skills that I always developed at the office, how this or that was best to handle and less so the formal training. As a guess I would say the higher the level of call center the better the work from home works. Lower level call centers, sometimes I wonder how the workers remember to breathe.

Perfect example is I have two workers here with me now, owners are off on business and I am for all intent and purpose the most experienced in the office. I am getting fairly regular questions from the newer folks. Not much to me, but fairly big to them. If we were all at home it would require calls and emails. Here it is just a "let me ask you..........."

Quote: AZDuffman

Not bad, still I wonder how well training holds up. It is the softer skills that I always developed at the office, how this or that was best to handle and less so the formal training. As a guess I would say the higher the level of call center the better the work from home works. Lower level call centers, sometimes I wonder how the workers remember to breathe.

Perfect example is I have two workers here with me now, owners are off on business and I am for all intent and purpose the most experienced in the office. I am getting fairly regular questions from the newer folks. Not much to me, but fairly big to them. If we were all at home it would require calls and emails. Here it is just a "let me ask you..........."

We are all on Instant Messenger. Send a message to one person or the whole team.
It works great, have a simple question, whole team gets it instantly via instant messenger and somebody always responds quickly.

All traing is now set up 2 ways.
Self training - simply computer training programs
Virtual training with a human trainer-everybody in on a conference call and our computers are set up to view the trainers computer display. It actually works pretty well because the trainer shows us how she does complicated stuff on her display as we watch then we switch the display to our computer to do the samething on our computer. If we are having difficulty, the trainer can switch her display to ours to see what we are doing.

Quote: terapined

We are all on Instant Messenger. Send a message to one person or the whole team.
It works great, have a simple question, whole team gets it instantly via instant messenger and somebody always responds quickly.

Been there, done that. Does work great. But I was more thinking of "water cooler" talk. OTOH with smartphones people do not do as much of that. Heck I text a buddy I haven't seen in 5 years or worked with since I left for Phoenix more than I talk to some co-workers.

Quote:

Virtual training with a human trainer-everybody in on a conference call and our computers are set up to view the trainers computer display. It actually works pretty well because the trainer shows us how she does complicated stuff on her display as we watch then we switch the display to our computer to do the samething on our computer. If we are having difficulty, the trainer can switch her display to ours to see what we are doing.

I had a few weeks of this. You need a dynamic trainer as the bad ones made me feel like the N Koreans drugged me, took me back there, and had me in some kind of brainwashing program. Boring and isolating. The dynamic guy, well the mental picture was some dude in Malibu in shorts waiting until the end of the call to smoke up who knows what. The issue was it is hard to learn software without using it. Very dry stuff.

OTOH, maybe the younger generation is fine with NetMeeting training. I was at a card gig talking to two girls who were teachers for their straight-job. I knew chalkboards became white-boards 15 years ago, but the rest of the tech they use, good grief.

As for now, just put a bunch of newer abstractors around me and I am happy to show them the ropes. I may be a dinosaur and the comet may be on its way, but the comet didn't kill everything. In my industry at least there is no substitute for "time experience" for the most part.

Quote: odiousgambit

I hate it when I am asked this at check-out, meanwhile there was zero help out there on the floor itself.

Cashier: Did you find everything you need?

Me: Nope

Cashier: I'm so sorry, can I have someone find it for you?

Me: You want me to stand here for 10 min while
some kid who knows nothing hunts down what I couldn't
find? No thanks.


Walmart is the worst. If you can find an
actual employee on the floor, they are
usually over 70 and know nothing about
anything. In that store you're on your own.

I am officially out of the call center.
Still attached to the call center via phone, intranet and Instant messenger.
Still booking international corporate travel
Working from home now and loving it.
The commute is now to walk upstairs to my home office.

A huge plus is privacy. At the call center when it was slow, surfed the internet and posted here on company equipment.
Always felt uncomfortable doing that.
Now surfing and posting from my private laptop 100% of the time.