Modern Day Sweat Shop

I have recently acquired a new job in which I hate... I am working at a call center that does internet tech support for a full service cable, internet, tv company out of the US. This place is well, what myself and my trainer have recently decided is a modern day sweat shop.

Over the coarse of a 5-15 minute phone call I have to operate 14 pieces of software. Not only are half of them useless they are just repetitive. I have to not only take their name, address, phone number, I must put that information into at least three of teh fourteen different pieces of software while helping the customer with their problem.

Ninety percent of the time the customers problem is not on their end, it's normally something to do with our system or the equipment they rent from us (modem). After I input all their information I have to wait for the system to run a diagnostic on their connection and then read through the encrypted test results to try and understand what it all means. Once we have done that we troubleshoot whether it's because of us or something they have. Like i said, most of the time it's a problem with our equipment. Now I have to use other pieces of software to fix the problem which can take anywhere from 5 - 30 minutes because the systems are too slow. Then of course once we are done fixing the problem we have to thank them for using our company, even though i don't normally mean it, I mean, if the problem was with us, now the customer has waited so long to get through to myself, then had to wait on the phone while the problem gets fixed. And if i can't fix their problem I have to send a technician out, which I have rarely been able to book same day, most of the time it's nearly a month away before the technician can get there.

While I'm still on the phone i have to complete every piece of software I have open before the customer hangs up, because as soon as the call ends, i get another call right away and if I don't have everything completed now I have to have the next customer wait as I finish everything up for the previous one.

Now of course, since we are running system built in 2001 (as says the sticker on the back of the machines) everything is slow and lots of times fails. This place is so retarded that we are supposed to keep taking phone calls even if we can't get a computer or the computer crashes. We will get in shit for 'work avoidance' if we don't take phone calls. I had to ask, "WTF am i supposed to help them with if i don't have a system!?" The stupid sweat shops response was, "Just be polite try to help them as much as you can, and if you can't, tell they our systems are down and to call back in approx 30 minutes." This is RETARDED. So now, not only am i lying to the customer, KARMA, I'm sure, will come into affect if I continue to lie to them. I brought this up to one of the higher ups and he said, "honestly, we don't pay you enough to care, just do what your told." WTF!?!?!?!?! Sure he makes a valid point, but they also gave me shit for not sounding empathetic on the phone, I'M NOT PAID ENOUGH TO CARE!

Now that our 2001 systems are unreliable we constantly need help from the 'team leads' and they are normally too busy? Well now that our systems don't work, don't worry, the hawks eye system does. If your 15 minute break last for 15 minutes and 30 seconds they will be there questioning you about it. Not only are they anal about break times, but they have standards for call times and hold times. If you have a customer on hold for more than a minute you will be penalized. While our systems continue to crash they still watch us like a hawk and expect everything to run smoothly!

Everything is so tedious and stupid, in my opinion, the place is a modern day sweat shop. All of these things must be done, and you are going non stop, all for MINIMUM WAGE. Just my thoughts on under managed call centers. This is the second call center i have had experience in, and this one is horrible, I'm sure there are worse ones, but really who wants to go into work everyday to a place like this, no wonder their turn around is so high. There are so many smalls thing they could do even just to bring up moral, but nope, they're too concentrated on running people dry and wearing them out!