too much stress at work ?

picard

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Have you notice that everyone come in to work seems really stress out? Everyone has their eyes facing toward the floor like zombies. Is this the trend in work force now? I believe there will be alot massive number of people whom will have cardiac arrest soon. People hardly talk to each other at work anymore. The office seems like Saddam interogation chamber. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

What do you guys do to relieve stress at work? smoke weeds, smell glue, paint or kitty ??? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

PhotonWrangler

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It depends a lot on the management. I've seen pretty good management that spends some time and money keeping the troops motivated by providing a clean weork environment, good communications, and occasional perks like compasny picnics. And I've also seen really, really bad management where they feel that their employees should exhibit unquestioning devotion, even under the worst of circumstances (think of the opening scene of Joe vs the Volcano.
 

modamag

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It's quite true at my place. My middle management is great but the pressure put on us by upper management is ridiculous. Too much blame game.

Well @ 5PM what we do is play foosball for 1/2 an hour to get rid of the stress.

It really works cause I got a 45 min commute for 6 miles. It's not so bad.
 

cobb

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I was in a call center that wanted more than 93.475% productivity. Thats a 15 minute break in 4 hours. They expected more productivity from their full time folks. I basically listened to music in one ear and only sat at my desk for the job. Before and after left. Same with break, left my desk. It wasnt that stressful, had a 30 minute break and took 2 15 minute ones or as needed when having difficult calls to deal with. I quit that and got a less stressful job in sales.
 

picard

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hey cobb, do you think call center jobs are really stressful compared to non-call center jobs?
 

PhotonWrangler

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I know that there can be a tremendous amount of pressure to "make the numbers." Modern call-center and workforce-management systems measure everything down to the second, so management uses those tools to rate employee performance. Sometimes it's used correctly, balanced with other "soft" measurements such as an employee's knowledge of theiur product or service and their ability to convey such to the customers in a pleasant and professional manner. Other times the numbers are abused to the point where management will completely lose track of the goal and focus solely on talk time, hold time, etc. Unfortunately in many situations the goals of short calls and good customer service are mutually exclusive and calls that are kept artifically short only wind up gernerating callbacks, cansuign the problem to snowball and escalating customer dissatisfaction.

Long story short, it can be stressful. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 

picard

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I used to work in call center job. I quit it. It was too stressful plus management engaged in alot BS politics.
 

cobb

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I worked in two. One was a mom and pop company with a database of customers. It was ok, mainly just follow ups. Then afterwards headed to the yeller pages. It was ok, just not the job I expected out of college compared to working in a shop, both chrysler and machine, computer lab of a rehab center and a rehab engineer assistant all with a basic highschool education.

The automated call center is. The rules are written, however the rest are subjective. At that, you can only fail 1 call a month or you get a verbal warning. Do it again, get a written warning. I failed a call for telling a caller when the info was located on a membership card. Another for saying hot line than customer service number, another for letting the customer with incomplete info call back with the correct info than to continue asking the questions til they hung up, a forth one for not prompting the customer that I had additional questions as he or she hung up when I told them more info was needed, fifth call fail for hanging up too fast, suppose to wait 2 seconds before disconnecting call, another for not repeating the info back to make sure it was correct. I could go on and on. I never once swore, was rude, disfamed the company or customer. Then I got the numerous emails from the management. You know, the 4 people who stand around talking about eating cheese, tasting wine, sports cars and vacations as we have 60 calls in the cue and they wont take calls or call code blue for us to get help from the other departments. See if we take on average more than 10 seconds for the month to answer a call, you lower your performance score and loose any profit sharing. Although we got emails about how great we are, cake, balloons and a graph of how our call volume is falling off. Daily the call volume peaks at certain hours and they send out emails asking for folks to help out and use less of their braeks. Makes sese to you?

Yeah, you get emails tell you how much the company is making 77% over expectations, while boss tells you by email to read this script in the email as it cost too much to edit the software to add it in the system. The emails are just like the troll ones that are posted here. I got one for talking to other assocaites while off the clock. See, I arrive early and leave late. I am suppose to sit in the lobby when my shift isnt on. I am not allowed to sociliate extra hours from other people since they offer shift swapping. I got a few emails about smoking at the ash tray outside than the butt containers. Seems you can only smoke by the butt container and not in the parking lot, street or driveway rather on or off the clock.

Yeah, the strive for more perfection just disenfranchrise the employees. No wonder their turn over is 22%. Maybe its cheaper to pushem til burn out for higher productivy than to provide a better environment? Its not like you get the benefits instantly, you got to work there a few months before they kick in. For 700 employees around the clock they had a large HR staff and weekly job fairs. Constant emails and notes on your desk with candy to get you to referr an employee to get the referral bonus.

I walked away with that everyone should work there to get an idea how bad a job could be. Frankly I do refer folks to there. I tell em you got 5 months at that job if you dont swear and give it a good hard try. First two months you are on probation so you can screw up. Third month you screw up at the end you get a verbal warning by email, screw up fourth month get a written warning, fifth month you screw up yo uare TERMINATED.
 

picard

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It is no wonder companies move call centers to India. Indians are willing to work for pennies. Now Indians are coming to Canada by the plane loads. It is no surprise that the wage scale in IT alsow dropped massively in Canada. The companies have all of this dirt cheap labour pool hence they are unwilling to pay decent wages for non-Indians workers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twakfl.gif
 

Echo63

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the company i work for is great - ok so its not a call centre job
its doing security - for twelve hours a night, four nights on four off i get to drive around and do ninetyish checks on about 35 businesses, its great i have to be at some sites at a certain time (to make sure their employees are safe getting out to their cars) but other than that i have control over what i do and where i go next
the company is good to me and all the other employees, they seem to care about our problems and help out if they can
 

picard

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I am glad you work for a company that cares for its employees, Echo63. There are many companies out there that don't care if their employees die on the job. I am not refering to contracting companies working in Iraq. These companies just care for bottom line. I met these management types of those companies; and I can tell you that those people are A#$%@holes. They have mentality of cavemen. I am serious. I don't know how they got to management position. They must kiss someone else rear end or sleep with lots of people to get that job.
 

picard

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doe anyone have chest pain or having difficulty breathing when you are under stress? I have that problem although I don't have heart problem. I already had doctor check out my heart, cholesterol.
 
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