by RubyUnicorn

Created on: July 06, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Call Centers, ugh, they are a necessary evil, however I have stories to tell you about call centers. I have worked for call centers on and off for the last 20 years. The horrors are all true. Not being allowed to go to the bathroom, no breaks, except for the 30 minute lunch where you wolf down your food, then right back at it for the next 4 hours or so. No getting up from your cubicle for coffee, water, or soda. No snacking in your booth, even if you are diabetic and need it. I am not kidding here people. This is all true! You are basically chained to your booth through your headset. There are no sick days, there are no excuses for anything! They don't care if your child is sick or if you are sick. They don't care about anything except you making or taking that next call. Calls are money, and most call centers have automated dialers that continually dial. You barely get to breath before you are talking again. None of this is the worst though.

As a call center worker, we have absolutely no respect! We are even less than the common household pet. There are no laws to help us, no unions want to step in and make it better. Why? Most people who work in call centers are poor, uneducated, single parents. So companies feel that they can easily manipulate us into thinking that we will have nothing else if it weren't for this great job. I have never felt more humililated than when I worked in a call center. I was always being sexually harrassed, I was always being verbally abused by superiors who always let you know that they were better than you. The pay was horrible, I made $7 an hour, yet I stayed there for almost 5 years because I never knew anything better existed. I was so beat down mentally, that I felt I was not good enough to work anywhere else. The way that they treat you completely strips you of any dignity or self esteem.

I have tremendous secretarial skills, typing, Microsoft office, payroll, human resources, and so forth. Yet because I was a recently divorced and a fairly new mother and had not worked anywhere for 2 years, no one would hire me except the call center. I will not name the company or companies that I have worked for, but trust me when I tell you, they constantly treat their employees like mud! I could not advance at that company because there was a male call center manager who hated me. It was very much like highschool. If any of the women who had been there a long time felt threatened by you, your life at the call center would be torturous.

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