My Call Center

The past 2 years I've spent in the call center industry had never been easy for me. Not easy because those years were spent working just for the sake of earning money to defray my expenses and nothing more. When I was young, I dreamt of having a job that would give me fulfillment and satisfaction and something that I would enjoy doing. However, the work I had in my previous call centers had been tough and unbearable and it seemed like much of a drudgery.

My previous call centers were for voice accounts and working there was like a hell. Hell in the sense that they treat you as if you're like a robot who doesn't get tired of answering calls for the entire shift. The only rest you have is your break schedule and putting your customers on hold. Calls after calls just keep on coming and there were even times that you're forced to render overtime because there were many calls waiting. I was living that kind of miserable life for 2 years from those 4 call centers. Working in those call centers had sucked the life out of me and the exhaustion had taken its toll on my health. I begun to hate working on the phone.

Just when I was about to make up my mind to quit working in the call center and just go home to my province, I saw an ad in Manila Bulletin that has changed my life significantly. Transcom Asia offered an email/chat support account. I never thought there was such a thing as email/chat support. All I knew back then was that call centers only handle calls. That is why it's called CALL center to begin with. Nevertheless, I dressed up and headed towards their then recruitment office at Ortigas Building. I applied and was hired.

I did not expect too much from this company because I don't wanna be disappointed again. However, it seems that everything is working well specially when the new Transcom Center has become operational. Transcom is not a perfect company as it also has its flaws and one of them is latency. However, that did not hinder me from liking the company. There are so many things I love here. The building is awesome and huge. I love the design, simple yet elegant. The roofdeck is just so amazing and from there, you'll get a breathtaking and panoramic view of Ortigas Center and Eastwood City's impressive skyline. The facilities are as great as the building itself. It has huge rest and shower rooms with hot and cold showers, nice sleeping quarters, impressive employee lounge equipped with wonderful stuff like TV, dvd player, billiards table, air hockey, internet kiosk, magic sing, xbox and so much more. The pantry area is so big and is accentuated with elegant couches and tables in different styles and colors, 3 refrigerators and microwave ovens plus the area has lighting effects too. Computers are flat panel and a bunch of hdtv are placed everywhere. The company has a gym too. Most call centers don't have that.

Beside the state of the art facilities, what makes me really love my work, is the account itself. Email/chat support is an amazing account. This is the extreme opposite of my toxic accounts in the past. This account is the most lax and so far "epal-free" account at Transcom. Out of 7.5 hours of work excluding breaks and lunch, you're only busy for 5 hours while the remaining time is spent on browsing approved websites. Yes, there are sites that you can browse legally such as Wikipedia, Google, CNN, ABS-CBN and a lot more. Most call centers probihit accessing any websites other than those related to the campaign. Though there is a policy of not browsing unapproved websites, it is not really strictly imposed. The proof of that is this post. Blogspot is unapproved website but I made this post at the office. Of course I did it discreetly. Hahaha..

Furthermore, shift change happens every quarter and not every month. So your body clock ain't affected that much as you have ample time to adjust. The pay isn't bad at all. The compensation package is way above the competition plus hmo benefit is already available the moment you start your training. What more could you ask for?

Working in this company has changed my perception that a call center is a purgatory, a place where one suffers and torments in exchange of something that gratifies the insatiable mundane desires.

So for those who are comtemplating on resigning, don't prolong your agony. File your resignation now and submit your resume to Transcom. Who knows, this might be the company you've been waiting for all this time.