callboy.

Call Center - Cambio

"Sa trabahong 'to, ang pag-ihi lang ang pahinga."

Queuing, EOP, kudos, avail, Avaya, toggle, AHT, CSAT, Plantronics - these are few of the common terms people use in this industry. If you know almost all of these jargons, more-often-than not, you're one of us: the contemporary callboys and callgirls of the Republic of the Philippines, who works from dusk till dawn, or commonly known as the well-compensated, narcoleptic, low-brainer, caffeine-addict, sleep-deprived, English-language-savvy-people of the Call Center Industry.

Most feeble minded people would say that this job is easy, all you need to do is to seat, answer the phone, pretend to be someone overseas who's knowledgeable with the product and/or service that the company offer, have a great American or neutral accent, encode few information on the computer, and then viola! You have a well-compensated profession. It's sad, but it's true, these are the usual connotations of people with our night job.

I was a graduate of BS Psychology in one the prestigious universities in Manila, and not to mention, I graduated with honors (I am not lifting my own chair or anything, but I am pointing out something) but I choose to be one of "these people" - the call center people who pretends to be "mayaman" or a "conyo" even if they're not, who goes to Starbucks or Coffee Bean every single day to show-off, who says "wuh-shing-ten" instead of Washington while paying on the bus. I said to myself back then, for now I will swallow my pride, I'll pretend not to be hurt when they ask "bakit nag-call center ka lang?" that this job is temporary, that I'll soon resign once I have a new job in the Human Resources or any other field that is related to my course. But here I am, still working in the call center, still licking the asses of those foreigners overseas who shouts, curses, makes you feel that you're less of a person, and discriminates you by your race, nationality, or you thick Filipino accent, and yet ironically, I am currently celebrating my 18th month in the four-corners of an Avaya-filled-building of S***S.

In my 18 months of stay, I realized tons of things.

1. Call Centers have diverse culture. Here, you'll meet different type of people - introvert, extrovert, gay, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, nerds, geeks, emos, athletes, artists, closet-queens, power-tripper, smart, home-wreckers, yuppies, working students, single parents, and what-have-you.

2. Call Centers are like rolling stores. Almost everything and anything are being sold, and all items are being paid in an installment basis, at least 2-gives, otherwise, your business won't work.

3. Usual Call Center agents are graduates of prestigious universities in Manila. Some agents are professionals, yet they choose to be an agent. Here, there are registered Nurses, Medical Technologists, Teachers, CPAs, Engineers, and what-not.

***BLOG DISCONTINUED****

While writing this entry, I encountered a blog which caught my attention. It was an article published in the Philippine Daily inquirer entitled "KOLGIRL" by Pamela, a Call Center Agent

‘Kolgirl’
By Pamela
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:13:00 01/08/2009

If you are familiar with the terms “QA,” “Queuing,” “EOP,” “ACW,” “AHT,” “avail,” then you are one of us, the thousands of “kolboys” and “kolgirls” in the Philippines.

We belong to the sleep-deprived, nicotine-inhaling, cab-riding new breed of Filipino youth. We infuse our anemic, caffeinated veins with ferrous sulfate every day so that we won’t be “NCNS” (no call, no show) for our next shift. “Ginagawa naming araw ang gabi.” [We make the night our day.]

Glamorous? Well, if your idea of glamour is staggering down Ortigas Avenue wearing Paris Hilton shades at 8 in the morning, looking dog-tired while everybody else looks fresh and new, then we are the kings and queens of glamour.

Bohemian? Ha ha! We follow a very rigid schedule. We cannot go on extended breaks. We cannot hang up on cursing customers. We cannot refuse to take calls. And we have to ask for permission to answer nature’s call. We are like prisoners in our stations for eight whole hours. Ours is a Spartan life.

I cannot help but be catty and melodramatic about it. We say, “Good morning” when we all know that everybody but us (at least in this part of the Pacific) is in his deepest sleep. We say (with an audible smile), “I’d be glad to assist you,” never mind if we had to leave a feverish son under the care of his “yaya” [nanny].

We can afford to miss family occasions and national holidays because we know we will be well compensated. Every birthday of a family member that we miss means we have P700 more to pay the bills, rent and tuition. The added pay for every national holiday that we worked helps pay our taxes. Yes, my friends, we are paying for the street lights along the avenues and highways that we must brave every night.

Contented cats we are not. “Laway lang ang puhunan” [Saliva is our only capital], we some people say, but we are in one of the most stressful and draining jobs you can find. And like the rest of the working class, we are overworked and underpaid.

We are forced to defend big banks, superstores, telecoms or any account we are handling. Just like any member of the proletariat, we are alienated from the giants that we work for. We apologize for things that we do not have anything to do with. We fix problems we did not create. We are the cheap, apologetic and docile answering machines at the other end of the line, the receiving end of the frustrations and ire of customers who feel shortchanged.

Apolitical? I have to disagree. We are tax-paying citizens like most working Filipinos. Yes, most of us get the latest news from Inquirer Libre (while riding the Metro Rail Transit on our way to work), but we are also appalled by the P500,000 “cash gift” congressmen got to kill the Arroyo impeachment complaint last year. We are also furious with this government for spending half of the national budget on debt servicing so that it can borrow some more. And we are enraged that some people cheated their way to high offices.

We may speak in English for more than half of our waking hours, but it doesn’t make us less Filipinos. We share the sentiments and burdens of every landless farmer, every laid-off factory worker, every out-of-school youth, every hungry Filipino mouth. We find time to mourn slain activists, priests, journalists and innocent civilians. Most importantly, we share the aspirations of the Filipino people to build a just society where we can say, “I’d be glad to assist you,” and actually mean it.

*Pamela, 28, is a single mother who works as a call center agent, a job that pays her enough to splurge on mango shakes, banana cues, rambutan fruits and Marlboro reds. She has a generous health card that takes care of her brain scans, EEG and MRI, paid for by her call center company, which she thinks is the source of her migraine and headaches.

"...I would rather be underemployed yet overpaid than being employed yet underpaid. Your whole month's salary is just my 10-day pay..."

- PAM