promotion - Cerebral Insights

No regrets? That is hypocrisy.

I have always tried to live my life with no regrets; to stand up for every decision I make, every opportunity I take. But it would be hypocrisy if I say that my life had no regrets; that I haven’t thought of the what if’s life presents. To be quite honest, I’ve thought of such what if’s a lot of times for my life has been filled with numerous opportunities which I cannot all choose.

I have come to realize that life presents numerous doors and windows of opportunities and we are free to choose which among them we would like to grab – God’s free will. There are no right or wrong opportunities, just good and better or best ones. Often we find that the opportunity we selected was the one that would bring us satisfaction and contentment and we know that we did the right thing. Sometimes though we find out that the opportunity we selected leads us to a tougher life, a tougher road and we are led to think of the what if’s brought about by choosing a different opportunity.

I made my choice when I said I will resign and leave the call center life in pursuit of a career in medical trancriptionist. I said this would suit me because the learning will be continuous and never stagnant and the subject in discussion is related to the field of education I pursued. Yet I will be kidding myself if I do not admit that the compensation I’m receiving have caused me numerous doubtful nights bordering to regret. I will be writing another article to expand on those doubts. For now, there is a greater nagging feeling that this article must serve its purpose of.

My product trainer from the BPO I worked with just sent me a private message via YM. He was aghast to know that I had resigned already from the company. I felt guilty that I hadn’t told him, he was after all my friend, yet since it had been 2 weeks since I left, I knew that a lot already knew the reason for my absence. Apparently, he found out because he was looking for someone he could get as a trainer. The account would be ramping up – a common practice that I knew would eventually happen – and he is tasked to train an insurmountable number of new hires – something he would need assistance with, badly. He was banking on getting me as the additional trainer.

Well, tough luck. I am no longer associated with the company, although admittedly I haven’t cleared things yet. I still have my ID and Maxicare card and I haven’t surrendered my headset yet.

When asked why I left and didn’t wait for any promotional offers – something that was inevitable given my performance – I simply state that my brain was already dying in the repetitious job. Natatanga na ako. This has been a concern I’ve brought up with my supervisor months ago and something he promised he’d do something about. But nothing ever happened. I guess lack of action and empty promises are a common thing in the corpo world. Then again, when I asked my supervisor if I could be promoted to this post or this (there were a lot of promotional opportunities), he would answer that it seems quite impossible since I was not on a certain level yet. In short, I am still a newbie. I would still need to wait months before I could even vie for any promotion.

Funny. They said during training that as long as you are good, then you could get promoted; that performance and not tenureship is the main factor for promotion. Apparently, they were lying or feeding us half-truths. That really irked me and pushed me further to hasten my resignation. Before I resigned, I asked if I could get promoted to the available posts, maybe even submit an application, and I received a negative answer.

That formed my opinion that I would get nowhere in this industry. That my skills would remain unappreciated. And it was further amplified when I was able to resign without much ado. I thought that they would perhaps try to dissuade me; ask me to think about it. They didn’t even talk to me to ask why I wanted out. They just said “Sure. Just render the 30 days requirement.” And when I didn’t, there were no qualms about it. Apparently, even though I did my best to perfect my metrics, and even though I was one of the top performers in the account, I am just a commodity to them – dispensable.

And now I will learn that I was the most likely candidate for the next trainer. I will learn that there is no other person qualified and they may have to seek in other geographical locations for the trainer they need. If only they could have talked to me then and informed me of that possibility – not give me vague answers that it may still take a year before I get promoted anywhere, then maybe I would have stayed; endure a couple weeks more of boredom fueled by the glimmer of hope presented.

But no. That didn’t happen. And now it’s too late for me to go back.

Sayang. I knew I would have made a great trainer.

new beginnings

Finally I’ve done the inevitable. I made the jump. I crossed the bridge. I did it. I resigned from my call center job and moved on to a new job. Fortunately for me, it was a very swift transition. Right after my last shift as an agent last Sunday night, I had my final interview with the new company Monday morning and tonight I’ll begin training. Somehow I still can’t quite believe how fast everything was or is. The transition wasn’t smooth. Because of the speed of everything I am unable to render the 30 days requirement after passing the resignation letter. As such, my supervisor informed me I will be terminated which according to him would be like a black mark in my employment history.

But I don’t care. Talking to other agents who’ve also been terminated from the BPO companies, it doesn’t really matter to the next company whether you resigned or you were terminated. The thing they’ll look at eventually are your skills.

And so I am excited to enter my new world tonight. I will begin training as a medical transcriptionist – MT in short – the closest thing I could get to a medical career. I graduated (or technically graduated) with a degree in Biology. The reason why I chose Bio was because I’m fascinated with life and its processes. I do not want to be a doctor – my constant forays to hospitals told me as much. Patients would die in my hands rather than be healed. Yet I am fascinated by the study of medicine – of how diseases affects the body and how procedures are performed to mitigate or cure them. Then again, to study medicine without really pursuing a career as a doctor is a luxury I cannot afford right now.

But with this medical transcriptionist job, I am able to meet the best of both worlds. I get to learn about medical procedures – diagnoses for certain illnesses, drug treatments, even surgical procedures – and at the same time I am paid for it. What’s even better about this job is we have quotas. I know for some people that would spell doom but for me it does not. Because we are paid by the quality and quantity of job we do. If we exceed our quota, we are paid extra. If the quality of our work is superb, we are additionaly compensated. Unlike in my previous job wherein you’re all paid the same rate even if you took more calls than the person sitting right next to you.

Another grand thing with the MT job is if I happen to finish all my work ahead of time, I get to do whatever I want. And since we have unlimited net access which is not blocked by some blocking program like —- , I can write blogs, play in Facebook, even watch YouTube videos right at work and they won’t mind. The freedom is overwhelming. I came from a job wherein every second is timed and controlled. CR break is 10 minutes for the entire shift; breaks are only 30 minutes and a second longer constitutes a reprimand; calls have AHT’s; etc. Now I am in a job wherein so long as you get the work done, they don’t care how you handle your time.

And the promise of a promotion is more tangible than the previous one and if I don’t want to get promoted, I can always opt to be a home-based MT which would entail more freedom.

I haven’t started in this job yet I am already loving it. I can already see how it will benefit me. Yes, it will be more toxic than the previous job in terms of workload. But that is the point exactly! It will involve more brain cells and my mind won’t be in danger of rotting away.

I can’t wait for tonight to begin. 😀

Breather

Days like this, I feel more than ever inept for the job I’m in. Not because I lack the skill or the discipline for it but because I feel like my skills, my abilities, and my talents are severely overlooked and underrated. Days like this I feel more than ever that it is time to quit. To look for a more challenging job wherein my full potential is exploited and the only reason I get marked down or overlooked is because I really do not have what it takes for the next step or the next challenge.

I guess I was placed on vacation leave, a rather unexpected one at that, to prepare me for the bad news I was to receive. Part of me does not think I should be blogging about this, for reasons that people I know will read about it, but then what is the purpose of my blog if I cannot share my sentiments to it. Besides, I have been talking a lot about politics the past days and I need to take a breather and talk about something else lest someone mistakes my blog to be a political blog instead of a personal one.

Maybe he was indeed better qualified. Maybe he was indeed a better candidate than I am. Maybe he had better stats than me. In any case, he was accepted for the position I believe I was fit for; for the position I knew I was supposed to have. I don’t even know why I was not selected. I guess they don’t tell you that. They just leave you to figure things out on your own – see where you went wrong and resolve it yourself. Maybe I was so out of the action last week, for very valid reasons that I do not know if they checked, and they thought that since my attendance was sort of erratic, I was sort of losing my touch and is a bit irresponsible for the job in question. Again, track records don’t matter I guess because they just have to look at the immediate and that’s it. You’re judged.

A tenured agent approached me and asked if I applied for the post. I think I have heard that question a dozen times already and I simply replied an unemotional YES. I don’t want her to see how upset I was for not being selected. She probed further if I got interviewed and by whom and when, and I just replied the standard answers to her questions. I asked her why she asked but she never gave a straight answer. She just smiled and left. I wonder why she thought to ask me. We were never close and I never disclose to anyone except my immediate supervisor my plans for my job.

Maybe I am being silly and immature. This is corpo world after all. Dog eat dog. Full of crap. Funny I ever considered working in the corpo environment, where I know people do step on people to reach the top; where I know connections have a way of creating favors skills cannot. Still it hurts. Much as I want to think well of the issue; make some graceful congratulatory remark; emulate Mar Roxas for his willingness to yield; I’m afraid that I am unable to. Tears constantly threaten to spill from my lacrimals and I have to stop them – I still have an 8 hour shift to fill in. Good thing I only have tonight and tomorrow night to work, then I’ll be going on my day off. I’ll be temporarily forgetting all this crap.

Another thing that really pisses me off is the survey I just got. It wasn’t even a survey for me but for another agent. But as with the case for these surveys, customers cannot really be blamed for wanting to express their opinions. It is just a glitch, and an unfortunate one at that, wherein agents will receive bad surveys for the bad service they did not perform. And now I am being asked to account for the DSAT survey and to analyze what went wrong with it. Well what went wrong was that the customer answered the wrong survey and it wasn’t his fault. It was the system’s fault.

I want to leave but sad to say I cannot. I do not want to leave only to move to a work totally wrong again for me. When I leave the work I want to transfer to is the work that I want, not another work that I’ll next hate. I do not want to create a string of hated jobs. But as of now I cannot pursue the work I want, not when the house financial situation is still shaky and somewhat dependent on me. I will need to wait. I have to. As of now, I have no other choice.

I entitled this post Breather because it is a breather from the political posts I’ve been writing about the last days. I feel like I’ve also came from a breather from the routine of work, a breather punctuated by the death of my grandfather and the recent buzz in politics; a breather that is now unfortunately coming to an end. I am again being sucked into the vortex of this relentless life as a call center agent – a hapless technician whose brain cells are dying from the rigorous routine of similar boring work issues.

A friend from work told me that life as an agent will never satisfy me. I need to get promoted to have a louder voice; a better perspective; a challenging duty. I need to get promoted quick. But with the changing ratings, the inconsiderate work rules and the questionable qualifications plus the feeling of utter disregard for one’s abilities, I have no concrete solid hope for ever climbing the ladder. Not that I really care. I just want a more challenging task.

And for that, the challenge I long for, the brain activity I crave for, I turn to other means. Work won’t satisfy so I must look for some other outlet.

Now back to those political discussions.

Addendum:

I just really want to know why. Why him and not me? But I am too afraid to ask.

work rants yet again

One moment of irresponsibility. A lifetime to pay for it.

Apparently, I’ve confirmed that I will never be able to get that apprenticeship post. I was not even endorsed for it so that my case could be reviewed and considered. There was even no decency to inform me that my application has been rejected. I had to learn through other, unofficial means that I won’t be getting the part because I wasn’t even qualified for the part in the first place. Maybe I should ask for my resume back. I could still use it and submit it elsewhere.

Then another thing that really pissed me off was that they just swapped my schedule. They said that if one did well in the metrics one will have the privilege to make a bid for his/her preferred schedule. I made my bid. I expected to get it. After all, I was one of the top agents of the team. I found out that the schedule was actually granted. BUT there was this agent who wanted to swap her schedule for mine. It was my day-off when all of this happened. By the time I got back to the office, the swap has been made and I had no say about it. They didn’t even ask for my permission. Oh yes they called me but it was four in the morning when they did! The whole house was asleep and everyone was awakened by the call – which I didn’t really get to answer. And when I asked my supervisor why he called, he didn’t even bother to explain why. I guess the bad news had to shock me first, without him in the office and without him hearing my angry tirade.

Oh yes I was angry. I was really pissed off. I work my ass off in this job, do all I can to be a good and worthy agent, try to deliver the best service that I can and the simple things I ask they won’t even grant. I want to say “to hell with them” but I have been raised a good Christian, had spent my college years growing up in the Lord, and I have learned that what would Jesus do (WWJD) in this situation is to turn the other cheek and say “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And so I hold my tears up. I just sniff and try my best not to cry; feign a convincible cheerful voice to my customer and do my best in my calls again.

But if before I try to take in as many calls as possible, to help lower the number of calls waiting and try to increase the service level, now I try to prolong a call as much as I can and even make use of the 1 minute after call. Before, I would almost lose my voice because right after I deliver my closing spiel to one customer I would immediately answer the next call and deliver my opening spiel. I don’t bother with the 1 minute after call. That was before. Now I make use of everything. I can’t accept it that there was this day when I took in 33 calls and did my best in each and because I had my AHT at only 12 minutes, I failed in that metric.

Nagpapagod ka na nga, kumakayod ng todo, babagsak ka pa. Parang mali ang equation. Mali talaga.

But then that is their decision. That is what they want. Who am I to question? Who am I to ask? I am but a small voice. A simple agent whom I’ve discovered they don’t give a damn about.

Post Script:

Well the day ended well. All’s well that ends well. I got an interview for the QA Apprenticeship so it seems that I actually got endorsed. And my sup was indignant that my schedule got swapped so he rectified it even though he had to go through a lot of channels since India had plotted the sched already. Oh well. Guess the day ended fine after all.

One moment of irresponsibility. A lifetime to pay for it.

And so I hold my tears up. I just sniff and try my best not to cry; feign a convincible cheerful voice to my customer and do my best in my calls again.

Nagpapagod ka na nga, kumakayod ng todo, babagsak ka pa. Parang mali ang equation. Mali talaga.

But then that is their decision. That is what they want. Who am I to question? Who am I to ask? I am but a small voice. A simple agent whom I’ve discovered they don’t give a damn about.

Post Script:

Paid to be a BUM

The human persona is a very interesting thing – one moment it could want one thing and the next, it could abhor that specific thing it badly wanted in the first place. In my case for example, one moment I was ranting about my dissatisfaction in my current job and now, I am raving about how satisfied I am with it. Or maybe last I heard I was pushing him away, then now I am terribily missing him. But that is another story.

So moving forth in this job issue, the past days saw me disgruntled, yet again, on the current state of my career life. I felt like my full potential was not exploited and I was all too ready to get out of the BPO industry, of which I know my potentials are not deeply appreciated. But some reality check later, I found out that I have no choice but to stay where I am now, for the moment that is, until some circumstances in life, uncontrollable by myself, changes. And since such is the case, I need to make the most of what I have or where I am now. And thus saw the advent of the e-books.

I know I could read e-books at work, but I never had any inclination that in another part of the network, initially inaccessible to me, there exists a whole collection of the latest and most wonderful e-books. But my entry is not suppose to start like this so let me change track.

If before I wanted to be promoted the soonest time possible, now I want to remain Tier 1 as long as probable. Again, see the conflicting thoughts or emotions that I earlier said was interesting? What made me feel as such? The e-books were just the eye-openers. There were several graver observations that led me to such feelings.

Based on what I’ve observed, the higher you go up the ladder, the more your responsibilities increase. Of course that is to be expected as this is the normal course of things in any corporate setting. But in the BPO, there is a twist to this normal course of things. The responsibilities and workload not only increases as one gets promoted – it EXPONENTIALLY increases. Let me illustrate.

A Tier 1 agent (that is me) only has to report for work and take calls for 8 hours (including breaks). After his shift, he goes home or to wherever he needs to go, and spends the rest of the day the way he wants (most of the time catching up on sleep). And if it’s not queuing (huge volumes of call), a Tier 1 agent is free to do whatever he wants during the shift – read e-books, fix her nails or eyebrows, gossip to other agents, etc. Now when the Tier 1 agent gets promoted to Tier 1.5, that is a Senior Agent, he still retains the same job description as the Tier 1 agent, that is take in calls. However, he will sometimes be “asked” by the bosses to do something especially if he wants to be promoted to a higher level. He will constantly be asked to do floor walks, that is examine if the other agents need any assistance with their calls, and take escalations whenever necessary. And then he might also be “asked” to render overtime (OT) in addition to his 8 hours shift. Quite light, you may say, but look at the next level.

When one gets promoted to Tier 2, or an SME (subject matter expert), the workload dramatically increases. Not only is one required to do floor walks and take escalations, one also acts as an assistant supervisor, making reports, following up on agents’ performances and customers’ surveys, etc. etc. etc. And if one hasn’t yet done all the work one has to do, two hours is the minimum OT time required to finish all the humoungous workload. And it is possible to be forced to report for work even when one is on day-off or vacation leave. Talk about a life!

And when one rises up a notch, Tier 2.5 or to a Supervisor (or Team Lead) or a QA (Quality Analyst), the workload increases further, the amount of time spent at work becomes more demanding and the responsibilities becomes graver (or more serious or encompassing). I cannot bear to illustrate them here. And what do we expect when the level increases further?

Of course these are all based on my observations and for all I know the actual job descriptions and responsibilities may vary. What about the salary compensation? I heard it was not that large an increase. There are also exceptions of course, like trainers, who are also Tier 2.5 but I believe have a lesser workload, especially when there are no new hires. Also, the person at level 4 or 4.5 seems to have lesser workload, too, though more responsibility (that post will now be the PM or Program Manager responsible for maintaining the performance of the entire account or in other words making sure the supervisors or people below him are doing their jobs – you get the picture). But for the immediate positions near to my Tier 1 level, the workload and responsibilities are staggering. No wonder they kept on telling me to enjoy Tier 1 life as it is the most relaxed stage in the BPO industry. And no wonder, a lot of agents wishes never to be promoted, even when they have been in the job for more than a year now. Somehow, to preserve their sanity, they just keep switching accounts.

Then of course this is what employment is all about. I’ve had a taste of entrepreneurship and now employment and I could say that I have been able to compare both sides of the coin. Nothing beats entrepreneurship. I still believe I would make a fine entrepreneur and if I want the kind of freedom I’m thinking of, this is the solution for me. But for the moment, I must make do with employment, and hope that when the uncontrollable circumstances in my life changes, in the not so distant future, I would be able to move on to much more exciting and rewarding waters.

For now though, I must content myself being a Tier 1 – there are still a lot of e-books to read and my supervisor has agreed to allow me to bring in paperbacks when the need arises. I know it won’t be long when I myself am promoted to a higher level and subsequently given larger workloads and responsibilities – my nature would crave for that, but for the meantime, I relish this freedom I’ve found. I am free to do as I please provided I still get the job done by the end of the day.

And this I can say makes me content – for the moment. How long this will last, I cannot tell. Maybe as long as I have interesting e-books to occupy my boring shifts and Mafia Wars to play on my breaks. 🙂

Post Script:

Watch out for my reviews of Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town and Frank Collymore’s short stories like Shadows and The Man Who Loved Attending Funerals. These two books were my latest read and I can’t wait to share how much I’ve loved them.

work updates

after doing a moment’s worth of floor walk yesterday, i caught a glimpse of how newbies were managing their calls and thus their AHTs.

i also caught a glimpse of my personna which wishes to share all knowledge and skill known to me to improve their performance.

quite similar to the training session we used to have, and i used to conduct in my previous job.

i guess i’ll make a good team lead. but then again that will take time before that actually happens.

for now, i am content to know that i have managed to learn how to manage my AHT. that the reason for a long call is no longer due to the way i give out instructions or issue resolutions but so much more due to uncontrollable factors like the cust’s technical knowledge or the computer’s actual capacity to perform tasks.

and i guess this is the reason why i’ve plateaued in this work. why, i am suffering from brain damage. hehe. that’s too much.

oh well. gotta manage my breaks as well. so i’m off for now!