Call centres are
factories. A lot of people don't realise that. Maybe thats why call centres have such a high level of
staff turnover. I only realised this the day I resigned from the
Sky facility in
Livingston. It was my ex call centre manager who pointed it out to me. And coincidentally enough, the building I worked in used to be a manufacturing facility for some odd little plastic thing or other before
Sky took it over.
I think call centres suit people of a certain temperament. But they also tend to have two almost opposing sets of temperaments within them. For people who work in them Monday to Friday it is their career, their livelihood. Walk in to a call centre during the week and there is a sort of muted hum about the place. Nobody is moving around. The wall boards are scrolling through page after page of statistics. The managers have their beady eyes on the staff.
But come a Saturday, its a completely different story. The atmosphere is much more relaxed. The people who do the weekend shifts tend to be there for the money, plain and simple. Maybe its a second job for them, maybe they are students who need the cash, maybe they're full time mothers who come to work at weekends just to get away from the kids.
Even though the atmosphere is different at weekends, the pressures are still there. The calls still have to be answered. Systems have to be sold. Money has to be chased. But call centres can be fun places to be if you work with good people and have a good line manager. When I was with Sky my Team Leader was mad, totally and utterly certifiable. She was a great person to work for. And on the whole she wasn't afraid to tell her bosses when they were being thick.
Call centres are brimming with funny stories too, if you've never worked in one you'd never believe what some customers say on the phone!!