43 posts tagged “work”

I guess it doesn't matter if those people at work want those baby blankets. I apparently don't work there anymore. It's a long story and I put some of it up on my other blogs, so I'm not going to bore you with details. You can read about that either here or here. I don't feel like rehashing it that much. All I can say is that I will get a different job no matter what.

I've already submitted an application to Hollywood Video, and I'll continue submitting applications to anywhere I find that I'm qualified for. Of course, at my weight, I wouldn't exactly be able to sell weight loss supplements, since  no one would believe they worked. LOL But I can still do other things. The only thing I can't do is work for a cell phone company for a while since where I worked was dealing with AT&T cell phone. Proprietary knowledge and all that jazz.

However this issue has had one irritating side effect. I try to go to sleep and get nowhere. I just lay there with my eyes wide open. And I do mean wide open. They aren't blurry, itchy, burning, nothing. They are wide open and annoying me. But yet, sitting here at the computer, I'm blurry eyed, itchy eyed, burning eyes. Yet if I lay down they're wide open and I'm awake. *sigh* It stinks when your brains will not turn off. :(

I swear, I have never worked anywhere that has so many people either having kids, or who know people who are having kids. You hear a lot of talk about babies and baby stuff where I currently work. These people talk about bottles, diapers, birth announcements, you name it, they're talking about it. There is a good side to this though.

I seem to have become in high demand for a particular item that I am rather fond of making. I have become in high demand to make hand-crocheted baby blankets. Everyone loves my granny square baby blankets and it seems like everyone who sees one of them is either having a baby and wants one, or knows someone who is having a baby and wants one. So what I plan on doing is as I make the blankets, take pictures of them and then make a "catalog" for people to choose their blankets from. That way, I don't have to sit there and describe the various colors available, I can just hand them the photo album and say "pick your blanket." :) I think it's a good idea anyways.

I can't say I completely hate my job. I mean, it pays my bills, but really... it can be way too stressful at times. I mean, I spend all day listening to things like "there is a mistake on my bill" or "why is my bill so high?" I swear, people just don't know what the words "read your bill" mean.

For example, people will go on Vegas vacations, come back, and want to put an insurance claim on their phone because they lost it in Vegas. No problem. Until they find out they don't have insurance. Suddenly, the fact that they were supposed to have insurance for the past year and didn't is our fault. They'll admit they haven't read their bill for the past year, (some even admit to opening it, pulling of the payment stub, and tossing the rest in the trash), but it's still our fault that they don't phone insurance.

Or they will have been using their rollover minutes every single month for the past 8 months, finally run out of rollover minutes, and complain because they "couldn't have gone over." That is the one downfall to rollover minutes. But really, is it that hard to read your bills?

Ok, one thing I have to say I do very much disagree with at my job is the complete and utter lack of clarification on policy and procedures. I mean really. It shouldn't be rocket science. I provide customer service for a company that provides cellular phones and service for those phones. But frankly, their lack of clarification is just irritating.

For example, during my training class we grilled the instructor - what do we do if we get a call from someone who works in our call center? Answer: It will never happen, but if it does, treat them like any other customer. What do we do if a friend calls in and gets us? Answer: Highly unlikely, but treat like any other customer. Family member? Same answer. We went over and over and over this for at least 45 minutes, giving every possible scenario we could thing of. Answer was ALWAYS the same.

So tonight a call comes in from someone who used to work for our call center. They do not work there anymore, have not since last year. I get the call, I handle it, they want to speak to someone to tell them how good I did. Fine. So they tell the supervisor that they still work for us, etc etc. Supervisor tells me I didn't do anything wrong, but then starts talking to MY supervisor and the ops manager about it. Now wait a minute here. If I didn't do anything wrong, why are you making a big deal out of it?

First off, I knew the person didn't work there anymore - because they said they work on a Mac computer at work. We use HP computers. They also told me things about the iPhone that are not true, among other things. So after work I asked  MY boss about it. She said the person left us at the end of last year, but that for future reference, if it appears to be someone who might work for our call center, they need to hang up and call back to get a different call center. Fine. But I did mention to her that it would be nice to have the training classes be told that.

Frankly, I don't know the person, and I treated them exactly like I would have treated any other customer. I spent 2 hours on the phone with this person trying to fix their problem for them. Now I'm still not sure if I'll lose my job over it or not. When I go in tomorrow, I'm going to tell my boss I want full clarification. Did I do something wrong and if so, what will be done about it. I don't want to go in one day next week and be told that I'm no longer employed by my job.

I had a particularly nerve wracking day today. I came back from break around 2:30 and discovered an older gentleman speaking with my boss. He had a headset and Y-cord with him. I thought he was someone from a training class looking for someone to Y-cord with and listen to. Well, I was right about one thing, he wanted to Y-cord and listen to someone. But he was our site director. I'd never even seen him, much less met him before! Well, my boss decides that he should listen to me. After the call I had, I wouldn't have needed any natural appetite suppressant! I had one in the call I took with the site director listening!

I can't really talk about the call, but let's just say that the customer was upset, I calmed him down, got him taken care of, and he was very happy at the end of the call. The site director decided the customer's comments warranted a "kudos" call, so he had my boss set me up with a kudos call. Now normally kudos calls don't get you $5 Subway gift cards, but this one did. Why? I was on the phone for $45 minutes and according to the site director, went above and beyond what most reps would have done.

I didn't really thing so, but... he did and I suppose that's what counts. He kept saying how pleasant I sounded, how impressed with me he was. That's interesting to me, as all my other call center jobs, I've never impressed anyone and none of the other site directors have even cared to know who I was. ;)

What on earth is wrong with some of my coworkers? Honestly! We had a guy come in to work today, ticked off because he couldn't buy what he wanted to. Granted it was a kid about 18-19 years old, trying to get audio racks for his apartment or vehicle, or wherever you would put an audio rack, but still. In this economy, all he's complaining that he didn't get enough this last check to get what he wanted. Some of us are struggling to pay rent, car payments, utilities, etc. He's griping about not having enough to buy a non-essential item.

Sometimes I wonder how our teenagers these days are being raised. I see so many of them that are spoiled. They come in to where I work and go through training expecting that they'll just be handed their paychecks every two weeks with very little effort on their part. They don't want to earn their money, they want it to be like Mom and Dad - hand it over and keep quiet about it. So many of them get upset when they realize they have to actually work - and that work comes before partying. Well welcome to the real world kids. It's not all fun and rainbows. You get told no, and you get told no often. You have to pay bills, you can't party whenever you feel like it.

We had one gal who made me so mad - she wanted to go party on Friday and Saturday nights, so she made up a bogus excuse of going to school during the day and needing to be on this specific schedule so she could attend classes. Then, after she whined and cried her way into that schedule she wanted, her sister came up and pointed out that the girl wasn't even in school this semester. Our boss was not happy. Neither were any of the rest of us. It just went to prove - teens these days have gotten into the habit of getting what they want, no matter what. My question is, when are parents going to stop it?

*I realize not ALL teens are this way, but the greater majority of them ARE and their parents are NOT helping.*

I wish they'd give the store reps a bit more sales training before turning them loose on the unsuspecting public. To be perfectly honest, I spend a lot of time fixing things that store reps mess up - such as incorrect rate plans, incorrect or missing features, etc. Plus, stores cannot give credits, so they end up calling us if they fix the screw-up and asking us to put the credit on the account. That's great, but then I'm getting screamed at by my boss for giving out credits. So besides the sales training, the ability to give credits there in the store would be wonderful!

Other than that, I love my job. It's annoying to be on the phones, but eventually I know I'll be able to get a position that gets me off the phones. The funniest part of the whole thing is that when I worked for the other companies, they constantly harped on me for not passing quality control, yet I've only had TWO fails and I'm in line for our Quality Rocks for March. (Everyone gets a failing score at least once. No one is perfect. LOL) So yeah, I'm liking this place a lot better. ;)

That's what one of my friends at work told me when I told him over lunch yesterday that I had been hired by another company. You see, I work for Stream Global Services right now, doing Sirius radio activations. I was hired by Alorica to do straight customer service for the business side of AT&T cell phone service. Sirius requires me to offer sales to every customer. AT&T does not. It's not part of the quality sheet. I won't be in trouble if I don't do sales. I like that idea. When I started for Sirius I was told it was a no-sales job. Then it was all about sales - as in, your quality score is ZERO if you do not offer a sale to every customer. Yeah.

But my friend put up some very valid points - less guaranteed pay (pay for performance is based on several factors and is not guaranteed at all). Have to wait to accrue paid time off again. Have to get different insurance (not a bad thing considering the crappy stuff I have now). Hey maybe the new insurance will pay for some of the best diet pills available. LOL Kidding. If you read this blog, you know I don't do diet pills. ;)

But still he brought up some valid points including the major one (in his opinion) - he doesn't work there. LMAO So I'm still doing the soul searching about the job. But it's starting to look better and better. Pros and cons are about equal and so I have to make a decision. *sigh*

Thinking on it now, I realized if I switch to the new company that hired me, that I might actually get to hear some different topics of conversation. I mean, yeah, weight loss is a big topic with people, I understand that. But when you constantly hear about this person or that person's experience with various diet pills, it gets to be rather trying. That and frankly it's all drama. I swear, if it's not about weight loss, it's all drama. Well, this person is garnishing my check too much or this person is doing this or this person is doing that. Or my boyfriend did this. My girlfriend did that. My ex this and my ex that. Lord it's annoying. Hopefully I won't have to listen to that anymore!

So I mentioned in a post yesterday that I had a job interview today. Well, I went to said interview, and while I was out eating lunch afterward, they called me back to say that my background check had come back fine and they wanted to hire me. So I start there on Dec. 1, if I decide to go ahead and start after all. They said that I have the option up until then of backing out and not taking the job after all without fear of being blocked from applying there again. So right now, I'm weighing pros and cons. On one hand, I can ride the bus to work there. On the other, I'm not guaranteed a schedule that will let me ride the bus to and from work. On one hand, I make $9.61 an hour now. On the other, I'll make $9.00 with the possibility of making more through pay-for-performance at this company. On one hand, I have established myself at my current job and have friends there. On the other hand, I have the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. So yeah, I have some thinking to do. Most of it is going to be a financial decision I think, as right now, I'm barely making it on the wage I'm getting - I might end up completely screwed if I go for a lower wage. *sigh*