Looking for a new job

[Zellie Crescent]

I don't know if this would be the right place for this, so if it needs to be moved to wherever it should be I'm ok with it.


A while ago I realized something about a part of the job I have now, whenever I get a phone customer I like it. Dealing with phone customers is a lot easier than regular ones, and this got me thinking that it's time to stop playing around with the fish and get a job in a call center. I know those of you who work in call centers will tell me this is a bad idea, but lately I'm getting stressed out a lot and want to just scream my lungs out on a daily basis where I am now. I just feel that I would be a lot better off if I wasn't always face to face with people. Thoughts?

[trailerparkmedic]

Three cautions:
1) People can be far crueler to people over the phone than they are face-to-face. I spent a few years working as a cashier and never got cursed out. As a call center rep, I got called all sorts of things and one customer told me he wished my sister had died at the Virginia Tech shootings (my fault for instigating by snapping and yelling at him to stop being a dumbass over $1.50 when people were being killed at the college my sister attended).
2) A LOT of the difficulty with doing call center work is based on what kind of business you're in. When I worked for an appliance repair company, people were annoying and dumb but rarely vicious. When I worked for the credit card company, I got the above mentioned "hope your sister is dead" one, and many other people who threatened/wished equally horrible things to me or my family. So if possible, be careful about where you work.
3) You will probably have little to no downtime. You answer a call, they hang up and as soon as you're closing out of their account, you hear the beep that another call is coming. This happens for all 8 hours of the day. If you jump off the phone for a few minutes to go to the bathroom or take a breather after a difficult call or get a drink of water, it's all tracked.

There are good things, like a regular schedule and better pay than average for the area.

[MaggieTheCat]

Medic has some solid advice. I will add that getting into a call center that only deals with in-bound calls, and doesn't make out-bound calls, is a bonus. If the customer is calling you, there's less chance of them hanging up on you. Especially if you're in a call center taking phone orders for a catalog company or something similar.

I liked the actual call center of the last job I had (which was for a mail order pet supply company. Pet owners rarely get super pissed with you. Except the fish customers. No offense to fish owners but everyone who worked in our call center agreed that the "coldest" and most rude customers were those who were ordering/dealing with fish supplies.) The main reason I didn't like the job itself was management. I didn't have a problem with the stuff they tracked, like call times and break times, I had that under control. But they were still pretty...uptight about a lot of stuff. And I will admit that the job got kinda boring after a couple of years.

A lot of it is going to depend on the rules of the company, too. Our call center had a rule that if a customer was getting verbally abusive, swearing, etc. we could give them one warning, then hang up on them if they continued. They were also fairly lax about transferring calls to supervisors if the call got escalated, or if the customer demanded a supe, and that was always helpful. Management didn't breathe down your throat if your talk times were over average (they didn't like it, but they rarely did anything more than a stern "get your talk time down next month" lecture.) If any of those things were more rigid, I can imagine it would get stressful pretty fast.

[Zellie Crescent]

I think I would have no problem with phone customers, I mean I understand what you guys are saying and thank you. I've read enough threads and posts on here to know people can be assholes, but I've always been calm when on the phone with a customer as opposed to dealing with one face to face. I just really need to get out of there, I'm stressed out almost every day, I'm reminding myself that the only reason I go there is for the money, and i think I might be starting to lose some of my hair. I almost left a year ago but that didn't work out, I just want to be gone from that store.

[Moirae]

Sarah, I wish you luck but frankly, if I had the choice I'd never do this again. Working a call center can be a serious nightmare. Right now I'm working at a hotel res office, but I've worked for comcast doing internet assistance, and I'll tell you, it just really really sucks.

Yes, its great for a little while, but people are so stupid and mean. Worse than they are to your face. When I was working for comcast, a woman actually had been bawling. They were forced to take me off the phones for an hour and 15 minutes or I'd have walked right there. She was that mean.

And thats only one instance. There's so many there aren't even words.

I'm seriously cautioning you against a call center.

[AdminAssistant]

This wasn't even a call center...

Fiance used to work for a mortgage company, in the modifications center. Specifically, he handled disputes. He got a caller that told him that she had a gun to her head and that she would kill herself right there unless he saved her home. People on the phone suck.

Have you considered finding a stockroom/backroom to work in? I spent a good percentage of my time in retail in the cash office, in the backroom, or on the floor doing markdowns. Minimal customer interaction.

[Zellie Crescent]

That sounds like a good idea, something that has me less face to face with customers is a good idea. I'm going to be stepping up the search even more now, I know I'm not going to last at a&p for much longer. I never want to work in a grocery store ever again.

[ShadowBall]

I worked in a call center for a bit, and honestly, people on the phone were pretty nice. Even the ones who were pissed that my company called them, they were nice to me. I may have just lucked out. It was fucking management that made me want to stab people at that job, not the customers. My experience is tainted by a control-freak boss who put me under loads of stress on a regular basis, so my opinion of phone jobs might be a bit tainted.