CS No More...

[Reyneth]

NO WAY. No FREAKING way.

I'm so sorry Kara, that is such a huge blow. And completely not deserved.

My TM then said that they determined it wasn't caused on our end by a system glitch, and there was no proof that I didn't release the call (it was not lost on me that they didn't mention there was no proof I did, either). She said the company paid me to take the call, then it ended. The customer called right back and they had to pay another rep to take the call, then another to take the transfer.

Unless you are paid by the call, I deem this logic total and complete BullShit. You were paid to be there whether that particular customer called in or not. The other rep would have been paid to be there if you had completed the call or if s/he had. So that was absolutely illogical. Not to mention if the call had dropped (what? lose THE COMPANY'S signal?!?) on it's own, the whole sequence would have had to occur again anyway!

Did you ask that the call recordings be pulled? That is such a shady reason of nothing I would be screaming all the way up the HR ladder if I were you. Does it say ANYWHERE that disconnecting a call is grounds for dismissal? Jeeze, I've had coworkers screaming mad and hanging up on people (granted they aren't customers, but still against SOP) - and nothing more than a warning has been issued.

And that was a poor customer service experience for our customer, which is unacceptable.

Right, and the way the customers treat you is so acceptable. When you have treated them (on the phone at least) with nothing but the respect they deserve. What T-Mobile did TO YOU is unacceptable.

Again, I am SO sorry, Kara. I'll miss the posts but am glad you are now out of what is obviously such a poisonous atmosphere if they would pull this sort of crap.

[Reyneth]

Yeah, there was a non-compete agreement when I was hired. If I work for another wireless phone company for 12 months, they can sue me. There aren't any competitor call centers around here though, just retail stores.

Forgive me if I'm repeating what someone else pay have posted earlier, but a friend of my mom's who teaches business classes at the college level said that if they fire you, they can no longer hold you to that. Of course, I never pushed the boundaries of testing it either when I had a similar situation.

[MrSunshineState]

wow I'm sorry that happened to you. Is there no way you can appeal the decision? You have to have some rights.

In either case, you are showing a very good attitude about this. Good luck out there.

[Eric the Grey]

That sucks. It's too bad T-Mobile feels they need to get rid of good people. I've never had any problems with their CS in the past three years I've had my number with them, but then I've only had to call up twice. Overall, my service with T-Mobile has been top notch.

Yeah, there was a non-compete agreement when I was hired. If I work for another wireless phone company for 12 months, they can sue me. There aren't any competitor call centers around here though, just retail stores.

This makes it sound as though they dug for a good reason to fire you so that they could enforce the non-compete agreement. Often courts won't enforce them if the employee is terminated through no fault of their own.

As Saydrah said, You might want to check with your local regulations. In some states like California and Colorado (I didn't know that. It's a good thing to know), they are not legal at all, because they curtail a persons ability to earn a living.

Here's a good write-up on them, but I'd highly suggest consulting a qualified lawyer before trying to get around it.


Eric the Grey

[Jade Panurple]

Kara, I'm here to say I'm sorry you lost your job like the long list of people before me.

I have service with T-Mobile, and I call 611 a LOT. Being as my husband just added me to his account a few months ago, and both the phones I have had have died within a day or two. Manufacturerers defects. yeck. I do have to say that the ladies (never guys for some reason) that I have spoken with have been wonderful, calm, polite people. One of them even got me into a better mood 10 days ago (my birthday) when the slide broke on my Rizr after already having had a bad day.
After saying all of this, even though I know I probably never spoke to you....


Thank you Kara, for being a great customer service rep, for being patient, kind, and understanding with me, even though I am an idiot when I read my bill sometimes.

Jade

P.S. It's CS reps like you that actually make me like paying my bill.

[Nakajo]

Kara, that was totally and completely unfair to you. Take a couple days to yourself and go out and have some fun. When you feel ready, get back out on the job market.

And Kara, you rock! Things happen for a reason, something MUCH better will come along to you, I just know it!


PS:
Come work with me! We're nice here!

[HowMayIHelpMe?]

I'm sorry to hear this, Kara....sounds like you got ambushed and that's not cool.

[Broomjockey]

I'd like to add to the chorus calling Bullshit on your firing. And the fact that they basically ambushed you with it is worse. This had absolutely nothing to do with your behaviour, performance, or anything else about you. This was about them. However, I'm not going to dump on them either, because frankly, it was likely a case where the edict was handed down to dump X% of the departments.

You're an intelligent, witty lady, and you're going to have no problems finding something new and wonderful to move on to.

[Seshat]

You're an intelligent, witty lady, and you're going to have no problems finding something new and wonderful to move on to.

I can't think of any better way to say it, so I'll crib from Broomjockey.


And on a slightly different aspect of the topic: it would be a trivial exercise for the call-management software to record whether the 'release call' button was pressed. It may or may not be a more difficult task for it to record other causes for a call to end - it depends on whether the lower layers of software and hardware pass that information up to the application level - but that's also readily do-able, just potentially a little more expensive in programmer-time.

If it matters enough to the company to fire people, surely they can spend between a day and a month of programmer time to record how calls are disconnected.

[csdrone]

Sorry to hear that Kara! Firings/layoffs do work out in the long run (it takes a while sometimes). If you work at a bank. try a small bank or credit union. best of luck to you!

[Blade_Raver]

Kara,

I'm sorry to hear that you lost your job. Their reasoning for doing so is complete and utter bullshit.

If they fire you, they may not be able to uphold their non-compete clause. You may want to get your non-compete documentation that you signed and check it to be sure.

There's a couple telco call centers in St. Louis area if you're looking to getting back into it...

I wish you success!

Blade_Raver

[justZu]

Kara I'm so sorry to hear how crappy Tmobile has treated you. You definitely don't deserve this lowdown stab in the back. I agree with everyone else here that it sounds like a completely bogus reason to fire you. They were probably given the order to let a certain amount of people go and that sucks.

And always remember, in the long run they are the true losers in this situation because

[Gravekeeper]

I have nothing to add I haven't told you already or something else hasn't already added. Just remember, I am here if you need help hiding the bodies.

Why does such a large percentage of management suck so much universally?

[Kara]

Thanks to everyone for all the support and kind words. At this point, I don't know what to do. A lot of people (here and in the real world) are telling me to dispute it. But even if I do get my job back and get a different sup, the department manager is still the same person, and I don't feel comfortable with that.

I collected a bunch of applications around town yesterday, and will be turning them in Monday. I was kind of joking about the prison, but I picked up an application packet and the pay and benefits are out of this world. And they start at just shy of where I ended with T-Mobile for pay. So I might be tossing cells and throwing people in solitary. In fact, after all these years of kissing ass and pretending to care, a job that doesn't require me to be nice to anyone sounds really good.

[ShootMePlease]

I'm sorry for what happened to you. You certainly deserve better than that. I don't think I could last 4 days doing what you did. You managed to last 4 years. That says something. Look on the bright side - there will always be sucky customers no matter where you go. I have always enjoyed your posts and I look forward to hearing about your next endeavor.