Nature of the Beast

Yesterday was my day off. For whatever reason (perhaps it was the drug induced haze from the antibiotics) my mind wandered off. Oh wait I do that on a good day. That really is nothing new. For some reason a comment from work came to mind. The supervisor had said, "Working in a call center is not something that you aspire to. It just kind of happens. I only planned to be here for 2 months and here we are a year and a half later." This thought was pretty much echoed with the other floor supervisor when he said, "If you plan on being here for a very long time then that is just sad."

I am not saying that people should necessarily aspire to work here. After all it is not a glamorous job. But then most people probably don't aspire to work as a janitor or the lunch lady in the cafeteria at school. Sorry was having a Survivor moment there. However, those are considered to be honorable professions and people recognize that we need to have people that do those jobs.

I believe that there needs to be a shift in thinking in regards to call centers. They are a job and people need to do those jobs. After all customers are always going to need to call their cell phone company, ISP, computer provider or whoever. However, the thinking even from the top seems to be that call centers are glorified temp agencies. I still remember when the head of HR at my former office was quoted as saying "You're all replaceable." And then they wonder why the turnover rate is so high. Hmm... perhaps it has to do with management's attitudes.

This was an ongoing fight of mine at the last place I worked as well. Seems that nothing has changed. Is it really so hard to nurture the attitude that it is a good place to work? Now I think that the wages also create an atmosphere of "temporary workers" since they don't generally pay enough to make it work over the long run. But then everything is geared at just getting bodies in the chair and not long-term employees. Perhaps it is a losing battle.... But it begins with the mind (probably a lot like any other battle).