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Guess who's back? (Warning long post and vent)
10 years ago
Hello watchers and fellow FA's users. Gattsu here.
So it's been a while! Sorry about that the year got very...busy. I did put it in my new upload but I thought it best to put it into this journal so i can give a better context of what's been going on. To those who don't really care for a life story be warned this is one :P So you can stop here if you don't want to read it.
So first up what's been keeping me busy. Well it was mostly to do with finding work, yep that old excuse. see what happened was this. I was looking for work for a LONG time back in 2014, possibly going on 6 months on job seekers allowan. For those that don't live in the UK it's basically money given to people out of work to support themselves on on the condition they look for work. no searching, no money. so anyway after 6 months on no answers to applications or emails sent to open jobs I decided to go on a course from a sort of charity called "The prince's Trust" that basically helps people get into work. The kind of thing they were offering at the time was working for the retail sector, and having now experience working in it I decided to give it a shot and apply. I had about a few weeks training before I got let out on the floor to do a real job for once. I worked as one of the people that work in the back, doing all the heavy lifting, dealing with deliveries and such and sorting out new stock. It was ok job, not something I really wanted to do but it was something to get some money and i didn't hate it. But then came the issues.
See everyone was promised a permanent position at the shop once training was done and if you did well during training, and after it was done quite a few of us were given the option to enter in full employment. We accepted expecting it to be a full employment only to be told a month or two later that most of us were actually only staying until the christmas holidays. It was a big blow for me as I was actually starting to get used to the job and the people only to be told that they were only keeping me until the week before christmas. While it was shift work, paid the near basic minimum wage and could be very demanding it was work and it gave me something to do. But in the end I had to leave and hand in my stuff in January 2015. It was very awkward as the shop even had a new manager who I never even met before then and it felt like she just wanted to take my things and leave without a proper farewell...So yeah needless to say it wasn't a good experience.
Then a month or two down the line I was contacted by a company that wanted to take me on. They had found my CV online and said that what they saw fit what they were looking for, so not soon after I applied for another job. This time it was a company that WANTED me to join. I was really surprised and a little bit excited at the prospect, as it was a bit into the area i wanted to go into. It was call centre work, and being naturally shy around new people at first it was daunting. Like extremely so. But I wanted to see what it would be like so I forced myself to go through with it. I was told that they would gladly take me on and I would undergo 2-3 months worth of training, the most I would have ever done for a job. There were quite few people there and I got along quickly with all of them, one of the women I sort of had a thing for but never really had the guts to say anything about it. Might in the future but for right now "Coward".
Anyway we did the training, there was a LOT to go through as it was about how to answer calls, how not to answer, the things we can and cannot say. How to follow protocol, how not to break data protection (which i already now as i went through it so many damn times during college) and how to dress appropriately...in a call centre...where no one sees you...yea still can't figure that one out. So after that training I felt I knew a decent amount to get into the job and we started taking our first few calls, obviously the first few we nerve wracking and riddled with mistakes, but we got into it soon enough. And then when we were done we were given our on computers and given the job to do.
Now I can't go into extreme detail about what we did due to confidentiality and data protection and all that but i can give the basic gist of it. But basically I worked for a company that dealt with pensions. We were a call centre that TOOK calls and not MAKE calls. People called us for help and information about pensions, legal advice etc. Now I don't really like pensions but i understand them, so I tried my best at the job. At first it was fine, all of the other employees were nice and friendly and my team was the weird group, which I fit into like a glove :P Although my training group was spread about the place and not in my team i still tried to keep up with them during breaks or pauses between calls. It was all good...but that didn't last that long. Soon I started getting bad calls, people that blamed the company, or even ME, for problems they were having with the pension scheme or with the online component. Now i can handle bad calls, i know what its like to get frustrated over a situation and end up lashing out at people, but some of these calls man. I had one guy that literally refused to listen to anything I would say or say i was wrong and to put him through to a more experienced operator, which was fine but then he had a go at them for the same reasons.
I had another who refused to pay for postage of information we needed and wanted a refund, I had a woman almost crying over the phone cause she couldn't figure out how to work a computer etc etc you get the idea. They weren't all bad but when it ends up feeling like I didn't achieve what they wanted or I let someone down in some way it really gets to me, like I should've done better or if I said something different the conversation could've gone better. And that kept building up over the months, i didn't really want to bring it up with my team leader as I felt I would be bothering her over something that might not have been a big deal. which in hindsight was possibly a terrible idea. So while that is happening my old training team is dropping like flies, some left as they had to go back education, others left for personal reasons. One of the guys I really had a lot in common with got let go because he was too "Forceful" in his talks on the phone. He used to work in a sales department for a big company before so he was used to selling things rather then give help but from what I heard from him he sounded alright on the phones. But it was literally like he came in one day, sat at his desk when his team leader comes over and tells him he's being let go and that's it he's gone. This guy had much more experience than me and i felt like he was doing a much better job than me and yet he got let go! It was then i realised how tough the palce was on people that didn't meet a certain standard. That also added to the strain.
After a while it ended up with only 3 of us left from the original training group. It felt tense and it felt awful. I was happy that I was still there and actually earning more than my mum was, which I was really glad about as i felt like i was contributing something. But things started nagging at me: "Why were so many people calling in with issues?", "Why is the government forcing people to have pensions?", "Why can't this system be better?", "Why can't we refund money?", "Why can't we give as much aid as we can rather than deal with calls quickly?"...it just got very overwhelming I kept getting frustrated by, what I saw, as mismanagement from the company side and from the government side by not telling people about us! The scheme or even the changes in law. It just felt so aggravating that I couldn't help these people as much as I wanted to without being told that my handling times were too long. I started rebelling against it unconsciously, deliberately giving more aid than I should. Offering advice when told not to, asking for information that we couldn't use to confirm someone's identity.
Sometimes it would work, I would help someone out and it would go through fine, other times I would get caught and told that I can't take this piece as an identifier or ask this question. It just got more and more restrictive to me. It felt like I was drowning and each time I tried to get to the surface I would sink faster. Somedays i could handle other days I felt like shouting down the phone at the caller. I never felt that way before and it was awful. I hated feeling such anger and helplessness at the situation. I kept asking for help and advice, hoping that it would give me some sort of insight into what I was doing wrong but each time it was just something else to think about, something else I shouldn't say. It got to the point where i literally didn't care anymore. I just gave up. I asked whatever I thought was usable and went with it. I just wanted to get to work, help people, and go home....and I felt awful for it. And each step i was like "I should do better! I should be better! These people chose me! I need to live up to their expectations! I won't let them down!". But it just made it even worse.
It got to the point where one day I made a lot of mistakes...too many. I asked for evidence that couldn't be used, I took information that can't identify people for accounts, I gave out information about an account to the owner without down one final check. I was already in trouble for missing it a few times but that day i just hit all the wrong notes. I didn't care...deep inside i knew I didn't care anymore.
And when I got taken off the phones for another mistake i knew then that I had to go. I wasn't doing myself or the people that gave me a chance justice. I spoke to my team leader and after at least an hour of debate, discussion and thinking I decided it best to leave. I was sad, I got to know my fellow teammates, called some of them friends...call them friends. I was actually tearing up when I had to tell them I was going...but i knew it was right. For the first time in 4ish months I felt a weight lift off me. I was still sad to see that potential job prospect be rejected, and hey maybe if I did stick around and do the remedial training offered I might've finally got it...But I still don't think i would've cared about it. I hated what it was making me feel and i hated what i felt it was turning me into so i had to go.
And now here i am telling all you who will read this...a bit sappy but there you go. Funny note i was told after leaving that one of the other female coworkers actually fancied me, which was a first. Didn't think I was attractive at all but then I'm not other people. I was flattered but she never said anything after it was revealed so maybe she found someone else I dunno.
I guess i just needed to put it all out there to explain where i've been. So yeah sorry for the hiatus and this big ass long journal entry but I though i should give you guys a full explanation. so there you go.
...Now i'm nervous about posting this XP But lets do it anyway. Happy christmas everyone and have a good last few days of 2015.
So it's been a while! Sorry about that the year got very...busy. I did put it in my new upload but I thought it best to put it into this journal so i can give a better context of what's been going on. To those who don't really care for a life story be warned this is one :P So you can stop here if you don't want to read it.
So first up what's been keeping me busy. Well it was mostly to do with finding work, yep that old excuse. see what happened was this. I was looking for work for a LONG time back in 2014, possibly going on 6 months on job seekers allowan. For those that don't live in the UK it's basically money given to people out of work to support themselves on on the condition they look for work. no searching, no money. so anyway after 6 months on no answers to applications or emails sent to open jobs I decided to go on a course from a sort of charity called "The prince's Trust" that basically helps people get into work. The kind of thing they were offering at the time was working for the retail sector, and having now experience working in it I decided to give it a shot and apply. I had about a few weeks training before I got let out on the floor to do a real job for once. I worked as one of the people that work in the back, doing all the heavy lifting, dealing with deliveries and such and sorting out new stock. It was ok job, not something I really wanted to do but it was something to get some money and i didn't hate it. But then came the issues.
See everyone was promised a permanent position at the shop once training was done and if you did well during training, and after it was done quite a few of us were given the option to enter in full employment. We accepted expecting it to be a full employment only to be told a month or two later that most of us were actually only staying until the christmas holidays. It was a big blow for me as I was actually starting to get used to the job and the people only to be told that they were only keeping me until the week before christmas. While it was shift work, paid the near basic minimum wage and could be very demanding it was work and it gave me something to do. But in the end I had to leave and hand in my stuff in January 2015. It was very awkward as the shop even had a new manager who I never even met before then and it felt like she just wanted to take my things and leave without a proper farewell...So yeah needless to say it wasn't a good experience.
Then a month or two down the line I was contacted by a company that wanted to take me on. They had found my CV online and said that what they saw fit what they were looking for, so not soon after I applied for another job. This time it was a company that WANTED me to join. I was really surprised and a little bit excited at the prospect, as it was a bit into the area i wanted to go into. It was call centre work, and being naturally shy around new people at first it was daunting. Like extremely so. But I wanted to see what it would be like so I forced myself to go through with it. I was told that they would gladly take me on and I would undergo 2-3 months worth of training, the most I would have ever done for a job. There were quite few people there and I got along quickly with all of them, one of the women I sort of had a thing for but never really had the guts to say anything about it. Might in the future but for right now "Coward".
Anyway we did the training, there was a LOT to go through as it was about how to answer calls, how not to answer, the things we can and cannot say. How to follow protocol, how not to break data protection (which i already now as i went through it so many damn times during college) and how to dress appropriately...in a call centre...where no one sees you...yea still can't figure that one out. So after that training I felt I knew a decent amount to get into the job and we started taking our first few calls, obviously the first few we nerve wracking and riddled with mistakes, but we got into it soon enough. And then when we were done we were given our on computers and given the job to do.
Now I can't go into extreme detail about what we did due to confidentiality and data protection and all that but i can give the basic gist of it. But basically I worked for a company that dealt with pensions. We were a call centre that TOOK calls and not MAKE calls. People called us for help and information about pensions, legal advice etc. Now I don't really like pensions but i understand them, so I tried my best at the job. At first it was fine, all of the other employees were nice and friendly and my team was the weird group, which I fit into like a glove :P Although my training group was spread about the place and not in my team i still tried to keep up with them during breaks or pauses between calls. It was all good...but that didn't last that long. Soon I started getting bad calls, people that blamed the company, or even ME, for problems they were having with the pension scheme or with the online component. Now i can handle bad calls, i know what its like to get frustrated over a situation and end up lashing out at people, but some of these calls man. I had one guy that literally refused to listen to anything I would say or say i was wrong and to put him through to a more experienced operator, which was fine but then he had a go at them for the same reasons.
I had another who refused to pay for postage of information we needed and wanted a refund, I had a woman almost crying over the phone cause she couldn't figure out how to work a computer etc etc you get the idea. They weren't all bad but when it ends up feeling like I didn't achieve what they wanted or I let someone down in some way it really gets to me, like I should've done better or if I said something different the conversation could've gone better. And that kept building up over the months, i didn't really want to bring it up with my team leader as I felt I would be bothering her over something that might not have been a big deal. which in hindsight was possibly a terrible idea. So while that is happening my old training team is dropping like flies, some left as they had to go back education, others left for personal reasons. One of the guys I really had a lot in common with got let go because he was too "Forceful" in his talks on the phone. He used to work in a sales department for a big company before so he was used to selling things rather then give help but from what I heard from him he sounded alright on the phones. But it was literally like he came in one day, sat at his desk when his team leader comes over and tells him he's being let go and that's it he's gone. This guy had much more experience than me and i felt like he was doing a much better job than me and yet he got let go! It was then i realised how tough the palce was on people that didn't meet a certain standard. That also added to the strain.
After a while it ended up with only 3 of us left from the original training group. It felt tense and it felt awful. I was happy that I was still there and actually earning more than my mum was, which I was really glad about as i felt like i was contributing something. But things started nagging at me: "Why were so many people calling in with issues?", "Why is the government forcing people to have pensions?", "Why can't this system be better?", "Why can't we refund money?", "Why can't we give as much aid as we can rather than deal with calls quickly?"...it just got very overwhelming I kept getting frustrated by, what I saw, as mismanagement from the company side and from the government side by not telling people about us! The scheme or even the changes in law. It just felt so aggravating that I couldn't help these people as much as I wanted to without being told that my handling times were too long. I started rebelling against it unconsciously, deliberately giving more aid than I should. Offering advice when told not to, asking for information that we couldn't use to confirm someone's identity.
Sometimes it would work, I would help someone out and it would go through fine, other times I would get caught and told that I can't take this piece as an identifier or ask this question. It just got more and more restrictive to me. It felt like I was drowning and each time I tried to get to the surface I would sink faster. Somedays i could handle other days I felt like shouting down the phone at the caller. I never felt that way before and it was awful. I hated feeling such anger and helplessness at the situation. I kept asking for help and advice, hoping that it would give me some sort of insight into what I was doing wrong but each time it was just something else to think about, something else I shouldn't say. It got to the point where i literally didn't care anymore. I just gave up. I asked whatever I thought was usable and went with it. I just wanted to get to work, help people, and go home....and I felt awful for it. And each step i was like "I should do better! I should be better! These people chose me! I need to live up to their expectations! I won't let them down!". But it just made it even worse.
It got to the point where one day I made a lot of mistakes...too many. I asked for evidence that couldn't be used, I took information that can't identify people for accounts, I gave out information about an account to the owner without down one final check. I was already in trouble for missing it a few times but that day i just hit all the wrong notes. I didn't care...deep inside i knew I didn't care anymore.
And when I got taken off the phones for another mistake i knew then that I had to go. I wasn't doing myself or the people that gave me a chance justice. I spoke to my team leader and after at least an hour of debate, discussion and thinking I decided it best to leave. I was sad, I got to know my fellow teammates, called some of them friends...call them friends. I was actually tearing up when I had to tell them I was going...but i knew it was right. For the first time in 4ish months I felt a weight lift off me. I was still sad to see that potential job prospect be rejected, and hey maybe if I did stick around and do the remedial training offered I might've finally got it...But I still don't think i would've cared about it. I hated what it was making me feel and i hated what i felt it was turning me into so i had to go.
And now here i am telling all you who will read this...a bit sappy but there you go. Funny note i was told after leaving that one of the other female coworkers actually fancied me, which was a first. Didn't think I was attractive at all but then I'm not other people. I was flattered but she never said anything after it was revealed so maybe she found someone else I dunno.
I guess i just needed to put it all out there to explain where i've been. So yeah sorry for the hiatus and this big ass long journal entry but I though i should give you guys a full explanation. so there you go.
...Now i'm nervous about posting this XP But lets do it anyway. Happy christmas everyone and have a good last few days of 2015.
