A day in the life of ...

I didn't go to work last Friday. Though it was my second day, I'm not like the other girls who grimace in pain everytime they have their period. I was not really sick or anything, I just didn't feel like going to work. I figured I still have four more Sick Leaves (SL) left, so why not take advantage of it. Right? Right.

Team Bali
I'll definitely miss my team once I decide to leave (that is, if the company doesn't find any reason to force me to resign first). I love Bali - that's my team's name. We're like the trend-setters in the company. We were first to have team meetings once a week, sometimes even twice/thrice a week. We even complained that it was too much and we were telling each other that how come the other teams are not doing it (of course, this was behind our sup's back; but she eventually knew about it coz we told her so since the team was that open and we were all friends). We were also the first to check our everyday stats after shift. We had our own team chat room that the others were surprised to find out about. And we were also the first to conduct a team building activity. The others just followed suit.

End-shifters
Our shift is at 3am-12pm. That's the last shift for the CSRs. Since a lot of 'em are coming in, they cannot accommodate us all at the 29th floor (for CSRs). End-shifters take calls first at the 27th (TSRs) or at the training rooms at the 28th (HR Ofc). This is the price we have to pay for being the pioneers, not to have permanent seats! If we're taking calls at the 28th, some sup would joke and ask their own team to occupy another room since they wouldn't want us to set (bad) examples (especially to the newbies). Then around 5 or 6am, we are asked to go up since the earlier shift would be going home. Everytime we'd go up, we'd always hear comments like "nandyan na ang bali, maingay na naman eh!" or "sabi na nga ba nandyan na ang bali eh!" Admittedly, we talk a lot and we just can't seem to stop. The only problem is we talk in the vernacular. Tagalog kung tagalog ito - and that's not allowed. Yup, loud and proud. Offense #1.

Happy team
Not one of us is excited to take calls and talk to irate customers, especially if we weren't able to get enough sleep. It's a stressful job. But still, we look forward to going to work everyday coz we don't want to miss the fun of being with friends. My team is a talented bunch - great conversationalists, great dancers, great singers. So even if we're really pissed off and we're having a bad day, we still know how to turn things around. We joke around, make fun of each other, tell stories, sing and dance. All these we do on the floor, even if someone is in a middle of a call. Laughter would soon follow. The funny part is, we all have this weird way of laughing and that would just make us laugh even more. Next thing we know, we're being told to hush it by the sups on the floor. Offense #2.

(Over) breaks
We are a tight team. Everyday, we would take our two 15-minute breaks and lunch together. I think we were also the first to do that; you know, have team breaks together. We can't seem to get enough of each other that even our rest room breaks are synched. We have noticed that the breakers have been trying to give us different scheds. They can't break us apart. If some of us were given an earlier time, we would try to get another call and then would log out a lil late. Or we would just take it at the given time and then extend our breaks. A good 15-minute break would be extended to 20, 25 or even 30 minutes. That goes for our lunch too and for our rest room breaks as well. We are only allowed 10 minutes the whole day. Hellur! Paano kung balisaw-sawin kami?! We couldn't care less. We just want to spend our breaks together and have a lil fun. Offense #3.

ACW
In the call center world, aftercall work or ACW is the time allowed for an agent to document his call. This is only for 30 seconds and after that the agent must log in again to take another call. It doesn't matter how short or long the call is, you still have just 30-second to make notes. Aside from our legal breaks, that precious 30-sec is the only freakin break we are allowed to get once we log in. It's not even a "break" break since we have to document the call. And I tell you, that is so not freakin enough! Naturally, we would exceed the 30-sec limit. Come on, who doesn't?! Even if we're done with our notes, we would space out or just have some time off. They would have to understand that we know this is our job and it's a part of it. But they also have to understand that it's really tiring and mind-draining. Sorry, but sometimes we don't really care about those stats.

There was also this time that Cherry cried coz Rich and Eric were ganging up on her. Alex, the man of a few words told us to click on "make busy" so that we wouldn't get any call and initiated a group hug. That was so sweet. It didn't last long coz one of the sups shouted "Aftercall!" Offense #4.

Irate agents
Offense #5. Yup, we all lose patience and we do raise our voice and we do curse. The last one, we make sure that we hit on the Mute button first. We can't help but be irate coz almost all the customers are being difficult, unreasonable and racist. Not to mention those stupid ones. Others are even threatening to sue us. Go ahead, make our day!

Pasaway
I'm sure they would always find faults in us. And they would also find ways to commend us. We don't really care if they call us "mga pasaway" coz we know we are. I, myself, can be a certified pain in the ass. And I don't deny that. But don't get me wrong. We can be cooperative. We know how to compromise. We appreciate the things the company is doing for us. It's just that we don't think it's enough. So don't blame us. I'm not saying that being "pasaway" is the right way to get our point across. But if it'd make any difference, I'd be pasaway anytime.