Urge to Kill Rising

[Brill Weave]

So I spoke to my boss here at lovely AAA today. Apparently HR in their infinite wisdom has approved the usage of mandatory overtime and sporadic six day work weeks. We work in the inner city of Pittsburgh. Our turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous as it is now. We don't pay calltakers well, at all. By implementing this, they are essentially insuring an even higher turnover rate.

Worst part is I'm salary so should I actually have to do a sixth work day I'm working for free. Respond if you want I'm just dumping this here because I'm fucking furious and I would like to fucking punch our director in the mouth.

[Arnwulf]

You should be happy they're not talking about downsizing.

[Blabj]

You should be happy they're not talking about downsizing.

^

[Brill Weave]

We can't downsize. We usually run short staffed as it stands now because low pay and craptacular hours keeps people from staying. This is also the "headquarters" for our entire branch of AAA. To downsize us would require a large call center being built from the ground up and then outsourcing jobs to people who lack the geographical knowledge to perform the tasks that we do. So as much as I hate to say it, our jobs are about as safe as they possibly get.

[Fhloston]

You should be happy they're not talking about downsizing.

QFT

My job treats overtime like it's an unholy sin. But, I get your frustration, since you're salary. Working in general sucks, working for free is even worse.

[MrW]

So I spoke to my boss here at lovely AAA today. Apparently HR in their infinite wisdom has approved the usage of mandatory overtime and sporadic six day work weeks. We work in the inner city of Pittsburgh. Our turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous as it is now. We don't pay calltakers well, at all. By implementing this, they are essentially insuring an even higher turnover rate.

Worst part is I'm salary so should I actually have to do a sixth work day I'm working for free. Respond if you want I'm just dumping this here because I'm fucking furious and I would like to fucking punch our director in the mouth.

I also am on salary and this was a big issue when my company tried to run me into the ground. In my opinion, someone on salary can reasonably assume that they will work 40-47 hours a week. When I was working 6 day weeks/10+ hour days for 2 months I finally said that I will not do it unless (a) I get a raise or (b) That extra day I'm working gets added to my vacation time. Being paid salary does not mean that's their ticket to work you 50+ hours.. But I do understand how frustrated you are.

[Brill Weave]

Yup you hit the nail right on the head MrW. If they would add it to either personal time or vacation time, I wouldn't have as large an issue with it as I do right now. Since they announced it there has been about a 25% increase in people turning in their FMLA papers so they can safely call off on their day off. Fucking idiots.

The most amusing part is that last month we had our final quarterly meeting for 2008 and they were focusing on how to raise morale lol. I've worked in situations where there was forced overtime and working on your offdays. All that does is make for one extremely pissed off workforce that basically completely stops caring.

[Vandalhart]

Sounds like typical bureaucratic bullshit that accompanies a Call Center.
Is it a call center?

I have an ex(sorta) of a friend who works in one right now as a Team Leader or whatever and his teams sales (f'in sales in Internet Tech Support.. GAH!) are not up to par with what they want. So what do they do? They basically threaten the team leader with unemployment should he not get his team to meet goals right away. I mean, I get the idea of needing to meet quotas, but give him sometime to get his team stats up. It's not his fault entirely if his entire team is nothing but a bunch of douchebags who don't want to stand up and do their job properly.

[Brill Weave]

Yup the AAA emergency road service call center. We cover all of western Pennsylvania, southern West Virginia, parts of Ohio including Cleveland, and a small section of New York(Jamestown NY area and Lockport NY area.) We're in the top ten for club size, every "club" has different territories. Like there's a AAA Carolinas and AAA Bluegrass(Kentucky.) We all operate independently of the other clubs. So while one club could be floundering financially, another could be doing well. In the end we answer to the AAA National club which is basically like the overlord.

[Vandalhart]

Ahh. I've worked at a few call centers over the years. I worked as a Reservation Sales Agent for AVIS, then I was an Internet Tech Support agent for Bell Sympatico, and after that I was a Customer Service Agent for a mobile phone company.

Advice I could give anyone who's looking to start in Call Centers is to have aspirations of moving around in the place. Things that can help that along are to not use sick time frequently, as all of the ones I worked at had a system that prevented you from department changing or getting promoted because of attendance.

[MrW]

Lol that is a fantastic way to raise morale. Some companies fail to realize it doesn't take much to make their employees happy. It's a damn shame. Unfortunately the money makes you show up everyday.

[Brill Weave]

Yeah, I've bounced around in several different positions here before landing where I'm currently at. I went from being a dispatcher(for the tow trucks) to Quality Assurance to being a garage field representative(in charge of hiring and firing garages for certain areas) finally to dispatch supervisor. Overall the job isn't bad except I don't like a lot of my subordinates. And I'm actively working on getting three different people fired lol.

[kuronosan]

Working in a call center myself I can tell you the best thing to do is to be firm. Call centers know they pay good and as such they do their best to flex their mighty muscle and overwork/overfrustrate their employees. That is why a lot of places such as retail and customer service have high turnovers. They don't care (and consequently is one of the many reasons our economy is the way it is - overspending) because they can always find someone else to do the work.

Until the mentality of the workers (I won't work there no matter what because of how they treat people but I need a job so I'll do it) or the companies (Someone else will just do the job so we'll let this guy go no matter how good he is) changes, nothing else will.

[Brill Weave]

See there's the issue they have. This call center is a lot more different than most other call centers. Our people don't read from a script and they are expected to have extensive geographical knowledge our the areas we cover as well as some basic automotive knowledge. Like what type of service to when someone's car won't start but is turning over, things like that. We have seven different operating systems functioning at all times. It takes us about six to seven months to fully train a dispatcher to be able to operate without supervision. A calltaker takes about three to four months depending on how quickly they pick things up. So it behooves them to keep the employees they have. Usually the washouts bail out before their first few months are over.

[zoobernut]

So I spoke to my boss here at lovely AAA today. Apparently HR in their infinite wisdom has approved the usage of mandatory overtime and sporadic six day work weeks. We work in the inner city of Pittsburgh. Our turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous as it is now. We don't pay calltakers well, at all. By implementing this, they are essentially insuring an even higher turnover rate.

Worst part is I'm salary so should I actually have to do a sixth work day I'm working for free. Respond if you want I'm just dumping this here because I'm fucking furious and I would like to fucking punch our director in the mouth.

A) be thankful your company is not downsizing which has been said before but needs to be emphasized.

b) be thankful you do not work in the ski industry or a lot of other industries. I worked as a lift/vehicle mechanic on salary and during the winter I was almost always working 12+ hours a day just to keep everything running. And several times I had to work all night.

[0ni0n]

How much are you getting paid working at a call center?

[0ni0n]

double posts.

[Vandalhart]

Supervisory positions where I'm at start around $35-$40k/year. I think front line agents used to get paid between $25-$30k anually, and I think the next higher up would be $30-$35k.

Salaries tend to be lower around here because the cost of living isn't that high. I'm also in Canada.

[Shuemue]

So I spoke to my boss here at lovely AAA today. Apparently HR in their infinite wisdom has approved the usage of mandatory overtime and sporadic six day work weeks. We work in the inner city of Pittsburgh. Our turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous as it is now. We don't pay calltakers well, at all. By implementing this, they are essentially ensuring an even higher turnover rate.

Worst part is I'm salary so should I actually have to do a sixth work day I'm working for free. Respond if you want I'm just dumping this here because I'm fucking furious and I would like to fucking punch our director in the mouth.

wove that for you

[Dmitry]

My manager gets salary, and during the Christmas shopping season is required to work 6 days a week. I'm not sure if that goes over the 45 hours our company's managers are required to work normally or not though.