V

I got fired.

Well, technically, they gave me the option to quit.

As you know, I was planning to quit for a long time, but I didn't because I wanted to milk ******* as much as I could.

Or maybe that was only an excuse I constantly gave myself. Maybe I refused to quit until the very end just because I didn't want to be unemployed again.

Back to square one.

Back to being a full-time hikikomori.

But why did they told me to quit? Why did I think about quitting for a long time?

Well, during the time I worked there, I learnt that success and failure at a call center depends on one single factor: luck.

And I just ran out of it.

But let's get back to where I was last time: I hated my job, I was alone and I had to wait months to get the chance to get back to my old department.

I was more and more stressed out.

At first I thought I just needed to get used to those calls, but that never happened. Those calls were more and more stressful as time passed by. I started feeling like I was having the same argument over and over again, for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. And some of those took more than an hour. I lost so many of my 15-minute breaks because of them. And sometimes I lost most part of my lunchtime.

This also happened to my coworkers, who were also mad about it. But ******** didn't care: when they told our supervisor about this issue in a meeting, he just told us: 1) our break time was paid so it was optional, and 2) if we lost part of our lunchtime that was because we didn't know how to handle calls well enough. So, in other words, it was our fault we weren't able to solve some customer's issues we weren't able to solve in the first place because the system didn't let us like 90% of the time. And also it was our fault the customer wanted to speak to a supervisor almost all the time because we weren't any helpful at all, so we had to try to convince them we could solve their issue even when we totally couldn't—I'm not kidding, when the customer asked for a supervisor we were literally supposed to tell them we could help them with their issue so a supervisor wasn't needed, even though that was a total lie (PRO TIP #1: if you're a customer in a situation like this, just ask for a supervisor 3 times, and the agent HAS TO escalate the call. PRO TIP #2: the supervisor will take an average of 90 to 120 minutes to answer, so prepare to wait. PRO TIP #3: the supervisor won't be at any help for 90% of the time, and he/she will end up telling you won't receive any help because of your lack of payments in the last 12 months, but don't worry, he/she will tell you you're eligible for immediate payment, and he/she'll explain you the benefits of paying. No kidding. They will do that. Even we were supposed to do that.)

Long story short: everything sucked. It sucked so much that I just stopped arguing with customers. I gave them everything they wanted, and if I couldn't I just lied about it.

"Hey, Mr. Customer, you want to get your services back and pay us some part of your past due next month or whenever you want? Sure. The system says no can't do, but, don't worry, I can schedule that payment and reconnect your services. They will be automatically disconnected by tomorrow and you will be charged for the reconnection and you won't get your services back until you pay ALL your past due and the other agents won't be as nice as me, but I simply don't care. So thanks for calling xxxxxxx. My name is Luis. Have a nice day."

"Hey, Mr. Customer, you say and want a $300 credit because of whatever? Sure thing, even though I can only give you $70 at most if your claim is valid but I don't know how to validate it because they never explained that to me on my training. They just told me what a credit was and how to give one but not the specific of whenever I could give it ot not. But don't you worry, I'll just give you the $70 and tell you I gave you the $300 credit and you only need to wait 24 hours to see it reflected in your account. So thanks for calling xxxxxxx. My name is Luis. Have a nice day."

And it worked. I never lost a break or part of my lunchtime again.

But after a few weeks I started to fear the moment ******** find out my recent calls. And I still was getting more and more stressed out. I couldn't enjoy my free time anymore because I couldn't handle the anxiety of just knowing I had to go back to take those calls eventually.

So, because apparently I'm really good at running away, I started to avoid them. I just took my headset off from time to time and let the customers wait, yell, hang up or whatever they wanted.

At first I did it for 10 or 15 minutes when I was really stressed out. Just like and extra break.

But that wasn't enough, so my self-imposed breaks started to last longer and longer until I worked just a ¼ of the time. I still felt extremely anxious and stressed out about the few calls I took, though, and I knew ******* was going to find out sooner than later, but I didn't care.

The way I saw it, I was headed towards one of three possible outcomes:

1. They sent me to my old department—which was extremely unlikely.

2. I ended up quitting;

3. I ended up fired.

But, then, I realized there was another option: to ask for a prime schedule. Schedules at a call center, you see, are always changing. One day your shift could be from 6 am to 3 pm; the next day, from 10 am to 4 pm; the next day, from 2 pm to 9 pm, and so on and so on. You could even end one shift at 9 pm and start the next one at 6 am. Fun, right? And the only ways to control your schedule are to present a restriction—your school schedule, child care and other I don't remember—or request a prime schedule, which is simply a fixed schedule.

So I asked for a prime schedule hoping I could work every single day after 4 pm—because the only time we weren't back to back every single day was from 6 to 7 am and from 4 pm onwards, so I wouldn't need to take those self-imposed breaks—and a few days later someone from HR sent me an e-mail telling me they've received my request, and they were going to evaluate it.

Nothing happened after that, though, but it didn't matter, really, because a month and a half later I was asked to quit.

My supervisor told me I had to go to the site because some of the computers they lend to the agents were rented or something, so they had to give them back to their owners.

So I went to the site with all my equipment. Called my supervisor, and he helped me to return it. There were some other agents returning their equipment too with their respective supervisors.

Maybe what my supervisor told me was the truth.

Or maybe all those agents were about to get fired too.

It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

Some weeks ago, the supervisor had told us they'd found out some agents made a chat group where they shared tips about blocking the work accounts, so while technical support restarted them, they could take that time off with the excuse that they couldn't work without all your accounts.

But they were all fired.

My training group also made a chat where some of them complained constantly about *******. One day most of them suddenly left the group, and I heard it was because ******* discovered it.

Some of them were fired. Maybe because of unrelated reasons, but they were fired anyway. We were 20 at the start, and after three months we were only five left.

Maybe two or three still work there now.

What I'm trying to say is that in ******* is extremely common to employees to quit or get fired.

Anyway, my supervisor told me that before he gave me new equipment, he had to check something with me.

He guided me to an open room with a lot of security and a few agents taking calls. He told me to sit next to a computer and he showed one of my calls. The customer wanted to cancel his service, and I helped him with that, even though I wasn't in the cancellations department anymore.

He asked me why I did it. And it didn't matter what my answer was, because he wasn't going to justify my actions. Even if I told him someone put a gun in my head and ordered me to cancel the customer's services, they'd told me something like: "well, in that case, you should've told us about it. Your actions are still not justified."

So I told him the truth.

He said he understood and thanked me for my honesty.

But he said that didn't justify my actions.

And he took me to some HR representative to finish the process or something.

While we were walking he started telling me that my mistake was that I never said anything to him—which I did at the beginning, but stopped doing it after seeing how useless it was. He told me if I was stressed out I could've told him and he could've asked his superiors to give me a couple minutes of breaks. And I thought: "you don't get it, an extra five or ten minute break a week won't do it—and I seriously doubt his superior will give me more, but I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up receiving even less than that, or nothing at all."

Then I told him that was the reason behind my prime schedule request, and he replied with a little story about a colleague of mine whom I never got to know: he had asked for a prime schedule about nine months ago, and HR had given it to him about two weeks ago.

So HR took eight and a half months to offer a fixed schedule to a single employee, but three, maybe four, weeks to find my bad calls and decide to fire me, meaning they were extremely slow to help, but extremely fast to punish an even fire people.

And I admit, I ended up doing such a bad job that the decision to fire me was an easy one, so it was obvious it was also quick, and maybe that eight and a half month story is just one exception, but that wasn't the only time I've seen ******* being that slow.

Or negligent.

I remembered one of my training colleagues told me she had classes in the morning, so she presented her school schedule to HR in order to show them she was only available in the afternoon.

But they still put her on my training group, the morning training group.

When she asked them to correct their mistake, they just told her they wouldn't do it. They used phrases like: "we understand your situation", "we know how important education is", but they didn't show any intention to help her out.

At the end of the day they left her with two options:

1. To lose one month and a half of class—that was the length of our training.

2. To quit.

So, she ended up quitting because of a mistake she didn't make.

When I got into the payments department, HR offered us the option to send us an e-mail every pay day with all the details of our salaries—because our salary depended on our bonus and on how many hours and minutes we were connected and taking calls, so it always changed a bit. Or a lot, depending on who you're asking—so I gave them my e-mail hoping to get those mails.

A month and a half passed, and I never got anything.

But anyway, I was still walking with my supervisor, and he told me about how his superiors were investigating him and the rest of the team because of me. He then talked about some bad relationships he had with some on his subordinates. He was basically saying: "you can hate me if you want, it's ok," but I had the feeling he was the one who hated me, especially because my negligence gave him a lot of trouble with his superiors, which I partially understand, because I was the only one of his subordinates who was acting that way—at least as far as I know. So it's safe to assume I was acting individually. If

And we arrived to the HR, and my supervisor left.

I was alone in an interview room with an HR representative.

She asked me why I was there. I told her about the call, about the mistakes my supervisor told me. She asked me if I knew the consequences of those mistakes. I told her whatever came to mind. She told me the customer could tell all his friends: "hey, you can cancel your xxxxxxx services super-easy." So, when the friend tries to do the same and can't, he will get mad and tell them: "but my friend could cancel his services that easily, why can't I?"

And that, apparently, was inconceivable; I mean, people were always telling us things like: "a friend of mine got a payment arrangement, why can't I have one?" Or: "my neighbor has an internet + cable + mobile package at a monthly rate of whatever, why can't I have that too?" But that was as inconceivable as installing a defective motor to a car knowing the motor was defective.

Yeah, she said that. Word by word.

And she was pretty mad at me.

It seemed my actions in just that one call were apparently enough to fire me, but if I signed a resignation letter, she was able to give me a recommendation letter in a month or so.

She then handed me the resignation letter, and I read it and signed it.

And that was it, she escorted me to the exit—as if I was going to break anything or attack someone before I left, and as if she could stop me, anyway.

So, as I was saying, success and failure at a call center depends merely on luck.

I got fired because I was unlucky enough to be transferred to a horrible department.

My coworker quitted because she was unlucky enough to be scheduled to the morning training group.

My supervisor got promoted after being in an agent for three months because he was lucky enough to get in a department he was incredibly comfortable, to not be transferred to another department, and to meet all his metrics when an older supervisor quitted and left his place available.

So, success at a call center just depends on being lucky because if you're unlucky enough to have even the slightest problem at that job, ******* won't help you, and you will be left with 3 options:

1. To suck it up;

2. To quit;

3. To get fired.