My days as a professional zombie

I tried working in a call center and I lasted all of 1 ½ years. It was my first time to work in an office environment, and it was in Makati of all places. My job was a customer service agent for an online travel agency and I was part of the first batch for that account.

And Ohhh the growing pains we had to go through! We disliked our account manager because she was a snob and standoffish, our team supervisor lacked in social skills and the client wanted unreasonable (at that time) demands. Groans all around everyday and things came to a head one day that we even had to have a general meeting for the whole account to air out our grievances. But the pay was good and I needed the money, so I had to square my shoulders, and to grin and bear it. I called that experience, my character building period.

I had met a lot of quite interesting people and learned a few things from them as well. And some of them I would like to share with you:

• Despite the big pay, not everyone was happy with their jobs.
• But then again SOME were happy at what they were doing.
• You have to love what you do.
• DON’T work for money. But if you do find yourself doing it for that reason make sure, you at least LIKE your job.
• For people who work for the money, they have to work twice as hard because they have to force themselves EVERYDAY to go to work to earn for their family to survive
• The top honchos that I have had the opportunity to talk to confessed to me that it wasn’t their dream job or they didn’t really want their job. They were in that position because they wanted to be and do their best. Funny, our account manager was in her position for 5 years and she still didn’t like her job.
• Sometimes if you can’t do anything about a problem (stubborn airlines, or stupid customers) changing your attitude helps. After that everything seems easier and is a breeze doing it.

On a lighter note here are some other things that I discovered while being a slave to the grind that is the call center business:

· Don’t drink too much coffee before going home from a graveyard shift. I did that once and I was still up till noon (my shift had ended at 6 am that morning).

· It’s sooooo nice to ride the MRT at 6 am. There are hardly any commuters for the northbound train.

· You lose weight so much from working the graveyard shift that your clothes fall off you.

· FREE FOOD AT CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS!

· Go to work early so you can choose your seat. Being under the aircon vent is no picnic. My hands were literally stiff several times from the cold.

· I met several great people who until now are my friends.

· And meeting all the cute boys!

· My typing skills from being a chat addict were put into good use.

· I used to work at the 21^st floor. And I had a spectacular view of the sunrise and sunset EVERYDAY over the bay.

· The Makati skyline never looked so good this close.

So where am I now? I have long since resigned from my call center work and have fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams, to work on a ship. But that’s a story for another day...