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.
