Life of a Call Center Employee

Alarm at 2:30 AM woke me up. Went to brush my teeth and grabbed a cup of tea. 10 minutes later, the cab driver gave a miss call. By 3:00 AM I was on my way to the office. The Australian shift (Or the Graveyard shift) pissed me off a lot. Used to get dressed and then sleep so I could wake up and board the cab that early in the morning. Most "Call Center Employees" would have gone through the trauma called Graveyard shift at least once in their career. This is a tale of one of them - "I".

Most of you probably know how good we are (people from Bihar/Jharkhand/UP) in spoken English. Not because we never learnt but because we never practiced in the real life. For us, English was an optional subject and clearing it in the exam was not even mandatory. From that kind of environment to an International BPO - as we call it - was a tough journey. Couldn't clear the first attempt of voice and accent training in 2007 as the Mother Tongue Influence caught me there. I am sure I didn't improve the second time either, but the Trainer was kind enough to rate me exactly how much it was needed - just the passing marks. They had a job too and couldn't really say they failed. That's how I cleared it.

The real torture started since then. Wearing a headset for continuous eight hours is no joke. No matter how you feel from inside, you have to sound happy to be able to get good scores from the customer and the quality auditors within the organization. When I heard the word "Empathy" I thought the QA was pronouncing it incorrectly. I only knew about sympathy. Anyways, learnt the skills to "Empathize and Sympathize" and grab good scores resulted in maximum of three thousands of incentives. Pheww..... That was tough.... Working in nights, five days a week, whole through the year for 7 long years was really really tough. Many people think getting a job in call centers or BPOs is quite easy. Well, you can say that. But the life inside is a nightmare. You think guys and girls from BPO industry are party freak, anti-social, "bigde huye" chunk of people - you don't know the reason behind it. A person who fails to see the sun for months, fails to interact with anyone because of his schedule, fails to socialize because of his shift timings - needs some entertainment. They are humans too.

I do not understand the issue with our society. The ITeS industry is one of the fastest grown industries in India and was able to sustain the economy (and unemployment) during the 2007-2009 global meltdown. India became the hub for technical support. From Computers to Broadband, Phones to Antivirus software everything is being fixed from the centers in Gurgaon and/or Hyderabad. People still undermine the workforce and ask them "Did you get a job or are you still working for a call canter?".

In our country, we live on perceptions. Once we create one, we find it difficult to change. I am out of this industry now but can feel the pain everyone goes through every day because I used to do the same.

It is time we educate ourselves and understand - no job is big or small. It is our viewpoint, and we should change it for better.