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Could be a matter of low tolerance for silliness, but I've worked in only one call center and find it to be emotional/slave labor at it's best, exploitative to say the least. I take inbound calls for University applicants. The company I work for processes applications for a major University system, in addition we help out-of-state students take placement tests for the University in their state of residence. This constitutes two programs I take calls for (one I actually must place a large number of outbound calls). When the group I came with were hired we were given very basic training by a person with limited information on the program itself, in fact she had never trained or worked for the program. So the training that came out of that was inferior. Yet, unbeknownst to us, we studied voraciously the training materials we were given. We get to the floor, are paired up with an incompetent veteran customer service representative for all of a half of a day, and are told unsurprisingly that "the only way you are really going to learn is to get on." So, we jump our unprepared, ill-trained, and sadly misguided selves on the phones and drown miserably. The only thing we understand is that we must sound professional on the call, but it's a lost cause when you can't answer the simplest question correctly. The training materials we have been given means nothing when the question is more technical or operational (which it most often was).

But aside from that you are told to always have "a smile in your voice." For me this was unattainable without actually smilingemotional labor. I was talked to on a few occasions for my lack of smile in my voice, having to do with not only the callers, but the lack of knowledge on my end and resentment behind it. The company's inability to train had me seeming dumb as hell on the phone and getting hostility from the caller as a result. There's one team lead per group of 8, and all of us have a question on damn near every call. The team lead, who knows it all and should've trained us in the first place, is ran rampant by the end of the day. Each day after work is a damn 15-minute team meeting in which any questions or concerns are addressed with regard to calls, information, or procedures. Unnecessary, futile, and un-informative in nature I learned to not say much just so I can get out of the job on time.

With respect to management, you are given 5-minutes per call in which you should be able to address all questions

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