Absenteeism and Lies

In every call center, policies regarding attendance are strictly enforced as compared to any other industries. The reason behind this is because most call center companies are paid by their clients on a per call basis. This means that the more agents are absent, the more calls are abandoned, thus a loss to the company. But no matter how rigid this policy is, absenteeism is still prevalent among call centers.

When a call center agent calls his company's sick line to report his absence, is he really sick? Some maybe sick but most are just lying.

Most of the shallow yet overused sickness as a reason to be absent are sore throat, toothache, back pain and I never thought of this very awkward yet funny and effective reason, lbm.. (this agent might have used up all of the known petty illnesses and the last thing that came in to his mind was lbm) Honestly, I have almost been terminated because of absences. Thanks to my stats, it saved me from being jobless. I have used some of the sickness stated above except the last one. Hehehehe..

Not all agents who are absent because they are sick are indeed sick, most of them just malingered because they don't feel like going to work. They would rather go back to sleep and savor the wonders of sleeping at night, which most of them are deprived of or go to bars and hang out with friends and guzzled on hard liquors as if there is no tomorrow.

I will never ever forget this extemely funny incident related to me by one of my officemates. He texted his supervisor informing him that he can't come to work because he's sick. But the truth was, he just went to a bar with his friends. When my officemate was having a wonderful time grinding on the dance floor and already tipsy, he bumped to the person on his back. Wanting to apologize, he glanced at that person but he was so startled to see that the person behind him was his supervisor, staring straightly back at him. You think he was screwed? After he gained sanity from his drunken stupor, he immediately approached his supervisor and asked him jestingly, "why are you here, you're suppose to be with our team?" Smart enough, he asked that question right away before his sup could utter a single word. Knowing that both of them shirk their work and just partied, his sup gave him a wink. You know exactly what that means.. Hahaha.. very bad supervisor...