Hard times at work

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So I work at this company that contracts work out for a major bus company for those who are disabled. I am in a special group for the Call Center that handles multiple contracts.

When I came to this job, I told myself I was going to be different. City Call Centers for Chicago are very different from suburban call centers. Chances are if you call a Call Center most call centers for major companies are from or at what point in time from Illinois since our state is the hometown a good majority of businesses in the United States.

City of Chicago Call Centers do not seem to focus on Customer Service and more concerned about metrics and often fire agents for being on the phone to long.

Suburban Call Centers do focus on Call Centers but focus more on Customer Service and thrilling the customer.

I've worked at three call centers in Chicago and due to the corporate structure I often become enemies with team leaders and supervisors because I often without my consent or knowledge form a queue that since all the other agents are rude and do not want to help customers they tend to call and request to speak to me only.

For agents in certain cliques with supervisors ultimately my customer service skills and my ability to tell the truth at all times which helps me help the person calling it puts me into direct conflict with other agents.

I am also known to become to helpful at times and most city of chicago call centers have majority of African-Americans and how you talk and help African-Americans is very different especially if they have not left the city which causes some not being able to seem friendly or they might take offense at other cultures since most African-American Communities within Chicago are still severely segregated.

At this job however, I have been able to reason and get to know many people over the past three years and I have always not expressed my real opinion when it comes to politics. African Americans typically have a consensus on politics and views and since they are sheltered due to segregation they do not understand when someone has a different view.

So sometimes when they are self critical of their own culture since the place where we work is 'black owned' they often attack themselves and I disagree with them and tell them its like that everywhere. This has earned me a lot of points with being able to fit in.

I have had to take two FMLA leaves and during my first leave many people quit and were hired but the first group was awesome and meet some cool and interesting people.

The second time I had to take FMLA leave due to me falling down the stairs a new group started. This group was different. This group was the type that never meshed well with me.

It was the self righteous I hate everything and do as I say but not as I do.

During the 1st group my supervisor who seems to pick one target until they go to HR or she gets them fired finally attacked me. We often carry eye drops in the first aide kit. Seeing I have bad eyes I went to go get some. Sadly there was dry blood on the first aid kit and I got it all over me I freaked out and request I file an incident report and speak to HR so I can go to a clinic authorized for work place incidents.

My Supervisor told me to do me job or leave and there is no incident report and there is no clinic. So I left and went to the ER. Needless to say I showed up at my job spoke to HR and they were upset because now they had to pay me for that entire day, the entire ER bill, and had to an incident report which could of been all solved that one day.

At that point my supervisor for two straight months attacked me personally one more she went full throttle every three minutes. As she was preparing to write me up for something I was about to go into a full on all on Autistic Meltdown. I went to HR and told them my story I told them I had to leave due to the fact I couldn't function (Neither them nor I knew I was autistic at this time I was diagnoised four months later) . For two weeks she tries to be nice till eventually they all take me to HR at this point I couldn't speak clearly I was never, the HR Personal warned me to go to my manager first.

At this point they push little things on me and this supervisor focuses on another person for a while.

The 2nd time I came back from FMLA there were two new people out of the bunch which were an issue. One girl who I couldn't understand but she would come up to me on the Call Center floor asking me if I ever been with a black girl how "Once you go black you never go back" At this point I am pissed because I am embarrassed and I later find out she got with the Janitor so why did she embarrass me?

Second person was a snitch. I could see it with the way she talked and responded to people. She even snitched on people in said clique. She has the same issues I had with my supervisor but she takes it to another level.

She brings blueberry muffins to sell and sits where I sit when I am not there. She sometimes leaves her dirty cuts, and McDonald's bags near my cube. We recently had a bug infestation I have refused to say anything because I do not like bringing trouble. Only thing I have ever brought to the attention of my supervisors was the fact I have a virus on my computer and whoever is sitting there is browsing everywhere and literally looks up her ovulation calender and searches for, "how to get pregnant quickly!"

I never eat lunch at work a ten hour shift if anyone sees me eating people are confused because they know I go through an entire shift and eat little to nothing.

Well yesterday I left a can of pop on my desk. I often leave a charger, ID, keys. Sadly according to my diagnosis I have poor short term memory and get distracted very easily. Well today is Labor day in the United States and I got let go early which a lot of people didn't like.

I get a text from a co-worker about a situation. On my rush to leave I left the same pop on my desk with yesterdays empty coffee styrofoam cup with another one from today.

The person who leaves junk on my desk got pissed that I left it all there as she went to take my seat and brought the entire center to come see my desk.

At this point I am pissed because I know this is going to come back on me tomorrow to where I am going to need to explain this and though I've been there for only three years and I only left cups at my desk maybe two times as I just mentioned I get a message about being the cause of bugs and other issues.

Employees I helped out when they started after they were crying due to customer abuse and the local clique trainer calling that employee a, "dyslexic fool who shouldn't even work here" seems to forget me sticking with her and joined in on it.

Yeah I left two empty coffee cups and one pop can. I can't believe I am upset over two empty coffee cups and one pop can.

After reflecting on this I was in full meltdown mode internally and was ready to explode. I just need to type this out

Call centers seem to be the new production line factories. In the 1990s, I worked on a production line inspecting sweatshirts. I had a spacious work area compared to other people. I had about an 8'x5' area, with about 4'x3' free to stand in. You could walk around if you needed to, but you were losing money unless you were flipping the sweatshirts around making a specific movement pattern, looking for defects. 9 hours a day for four days a week and then 4 hours on Friday. I made enough money to easily pay my bills and have a good amount left over.

You couldn't get away from people physically working around you and there was no privacy. If you had a wedgie, everyone saw you pick it out. If you had gas, everyone knew it. The factory was the size of a football field and you could easily see all the way across it all day long. This was before cell phones or personal computers for regular people. We were allowed audiobooks or radios if we used headphones.

When you're in a small little world like that, petty things seem like a big deal. I remember this one girl was a mouth breather. There was so much lint in the air that she'd get lint on her teeth as she worked. Another girl kept an orange next to her work area for like a month and it stank. These are stupid little things but since nothing else of consequence ever happened I still remember those things 20 years later like they were big breaking news.

I don't have a solution, but I can say that it sounds like you are really good at analyzing what is going on and I just hope that if you like it there, you can wait it out until they move on to some other target? Or have you considered looking for a slightly different call center, one where there's no such thing as being, 'too helpful' to the caller?

I think anyone who can work in a call center even for a day is *amazing*. I'd be in a ball under my desk. I don't know how you do it, but it sounds like in a good environment you are really good at it. Our group sits near enough to our company's 10-person call center (soon to be 20) and sometimes on my way back to my desk I'll just watch for a few minutes in awe.

It's a rotating target list. We come back on every couple of months. I was lucky enough it took me a year and a half of working there to get on it.

I work in Chicago there is not much out there and typically all Chicago call centers are the same metrics based, high turn over with low customer service. I don't drive anymore and the good call centers are far in the suburbs.

Well some people end up balling up and crying. It's high stress I looked like I aged 15 years after working in a call center. My weight went from 160 to 260 in five months and developed gray hairs.

It's when you start expericing Maddness and don't care what's going on anymore when you have to worry. Those people are the ones who need to get out asap.

Yesterday I had some more issues but I have not the energy to go into those

I can certainly empathize with the call-center difficulties. It's not the job that's hard- the one's Ive worked I found quite easy- it's the environment.

Call-centers are the most rigid place I think you can work. With metrics being the sole focus in many places, there's no time to use the bathroom, take a quick breather after a crappy call, and God help you if you exceed your break. I once worked in one for a mental health care center for a large insurance company. There they gave you a 30 min lunch and two 10 min breaks (both scheduled every day at different times). If you exceeded one of your breaks, they took a break the next day. Being a smoker, and on the 2nd floor, it was literally impossible to go downstairs, smoke, take a pee and get a drink without going over. Sage to say I did not do this very long.

Unfortunately office politics are everywhere, and that's exactly what all this is. People love pointing out what others are doing wrong, even if its a coffee cup or soda can left at the desk. It's because you are good at your job and in many places coworkers hate that. It makes them look bad.

you're lucky to even get call-center work as much of it has been sent overseas to India or the Philippines. Im in central NJ, a place that once had many, many call center jobs. Now there are quite few and the once there are require degrees that I do not have. But I had to get out of call centers- off the phones in general. I was good at it but it wore me down. Some of the same reasons you seem to be burning out.

Maybe its time to start seeing what other type jobs you can transition your phone skills to. Maybe more of a tech support type thing. Maybe a business-to-buisiness sales type thing. I really enjoyed mortgage processing before the housing crash in 06. I personally now abandoned the whole thing and started doing data entry. Pays less- but no interactions. At all.

But good phone skills are rare. They are usable many places.

perhaps if you are formally diagnosed you should disclose this to your HR. It should be on record in case you get fired for something you shouldn't, or if a situation arises that allows you reasonable accommodations under the ADA. But cover your ass on that one. I'd sue the ever living crap out of them should they not do what they need to regarding your disability.

Maybe that black girl just wanted to have sex with you. If you are uninvolved, maybe you shoulda wrapped it up and went for it. (Not into black women myself- but hey a chance is a chance) If you ARE uninvolved, that was sexual harassment... Maybe time for a lawyer?

Bottom line is, there are a few ways you can use those phone skills that aren't your strict, metric based inbound call centers. Maybe like account manager or something? Something where you tend to talk with the same people for more than one or two calls will make your individual attention skills useful. This was my biggest issue too. Being "too helpful". Just some ideas.

Or you could just pull a Milton...