The frustrations of working in a call centre have increased
tenfold this last couple of weeks as the company has seen fit to introduce a
new rota of working hours with little under two weeks’ notice. It is an eleven week rolling rota that seems
to have no redeeming qualities and lacks any form of worker friendliness. There
is little uniformity or even normality within its schedule of shifts, some of
which have increased in length by three or so hours and I’ve yet to hear any of
my colleagues utter positive words about it.
One of the key things I detest about this new schedule is a 30% increase
in the number of late shifts, another aspect is the varying start times
expected during the working week, thus rendering routine redundant. For
example, one such week rolls along like this,
Monday 0900 – 1730, Tuesday 0800 – 1700, Wednesday 0800 – 1630, Thursday
0830 – 1700, Friday 0830 – 1700. Another week sees me doing 1230 – 2100 on a Monday,
1030 – 2100 on the Tuesday, 1230 – 2100 on Wednesday, a later start on the Thursday
whilst still working till 2100 and another 1230 – 2100 to round the week off.
It’ll also mean I’ll be working three complete weekends and an additional three
part (Saturday only) weekends. On top of timing frustrations is the revelation
that bonus payments have come down, by £50 per month if individual targets are
reach. It may not sound a lot, but when you’re working a minimum wage job, 50
quid is two weeks’ worth of groceries and money I can ill afford to lose. I could pontificate further of my
dissatisfaction over a number of other work related issues, yet it’ll only bore
you silly and cloud my happy mood whilst also give the impression that I’m
noting but a stinky whinger, so I’ll
stop here.
I suppose there is always a general sense of despondency
when you realise you’ve made yet another mistake along life’s troubled
highway, still we learn from our
mistakes, don’t we?
© 2013 Copyright to Jason Shaw
companies are like that over here also...work you to death for low wages and then cast you into the dustbin like a used tissue when they have finished bleeding you dry. sux! :(
ReplyDeleteWhat anne marie said. As much as I hate to admit it. Here, most minimum wage jobs mean "fuck you, you do what we want, if you don't like it, go find another minimum wage job to spend your minimum wage time at".
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Sounds as if you need a union. No doubt anyone who tries to form one will be made redundant.
ReplyDeleteJason, I've always tried to avoid job positions with shift hours like the plague. I assume that you knew about the shifts before taking on the job.
ReplyDeleteBut your job is clearly taking you away from blogland as we haven't heard from you in a while.
I notice there's now a tv show all about the working day in a call centre. Probably the last thing you'll want to see. Remember when they used to make good tv shows. Now they just film people at work and call it entertainment.
I give you credit: I could not do this work.
ReplyDeleteanne marie, the company I work for is apparently quite well known for having a high staff turn over, for the department I work in they are training over 1000 people this year, yet the overall staffing number is just going to increase by around 150 year on year!
ReplyDeleteJay, it can be like that over here. What companies in this industry seem to do is set up offices in areas where there are a lot of unemployment with a lack of other sizeable companies, therefore there is little employer competition to offer great salaries.
ReplyDeletesadly the company doesn't recognise any unions, so it wouldn't help at all.
ReplyDeletehey Dee darling, yes the work has kept me away from the net, I also used up all my internet allowance last month early, so had about a week or so without connection.
ReplyDeleteThe shifts were different at the interview when I took the job, the rota has changed once, slightly worse than the one before and this one is even worse than that one.
Oh well, at least its a job I suppose.
I'm not sure if tI can do it for much longer!
ReplyDelete