For me it was the collective solidarity during the manual data entry shifts we did when elections came around. Those were some of the most soul crushing experiences of my life, and the incredible feeling of coworkers you didn't even know that well covering for you as middle management wondered where I was (I had to take a short bathroom break because I couldn't take a leak for hours) were so heartwarming. Of course there also was all the bad stuff: lying to customers who were having real problems that you couldn't do anything about, being insulted by people you called for a survey and you can't even seriously argue against them, terrible pay, the list goes on. If you have anything to contribute, please do so! I'd love to hear your perspectives.
Not trying to dox myself, but I live in east Germany. I worked for a company owned by one of the largest banks over here, and they operate a service to block your debit card when you lost it or it was stolen. One of my favorite coworkers was a guy in his late 60s called Hans, and the fact that he had to work for a living even though he was past retirement age was heartbreaking to me. We started to talk between calls and it turned out that when he was my age, he went to a university in Leipzig to study Marxism-Leninism (this was obviously during GDR times). He was so well versed in theory that it seriously took me aback (he pretty much called me a lib quite a few times and that was a large part of my journey leftward lol); the people his age (at least those that I know personally) all dislike the pre-1989 period, and having someone to talk to between soul crushing calls with people whose livelihood was threatened because of a piece of plastic that was taken from them was one of the only things that kept me sane at that place. I'm so glad that after two years I finally got out of there, but sometimes I wonder how he and some of my other coworkers are doing right now.
The time the morbidly obese furry guy on help desk rolled out of his chair, dragged to his doom by his enormous gut.
Chickenhawking bastard.
Edit: and the sex. So much sex between co-workers. I slept with at least two, and I know my two friends who worked there slept with at least 3, not including the time my buddy fingered a woman at her desk. The whole place was just filled with degeneracy, sometimes fun, sometimes bizarre. There was the woman who brought milk to every shift in an old antifreeze bottle, and who would then drink milk, eat a can of olives, and a loaf of bread, every lunchtime. I also saw her once lick the front door of our building.
the call center was the least sexual place I ever worked at, good for you though haha
I worked for Obamacare (the health insurance marketplace) and it was horny as fuck the whole time. I slammed ass a few times and my coworkers got busted sexting via the company email.
I should also point out the company I worked for at Obamacare? Fucking General Dynamics. Ya know the fighter plane, tank and submarine defense manufacturer. Had a customer support division that ran the contract for Obamacare.
Lots of downtime working the evening overnight shift gives you a lot of time to get to know your coworkers. Could not have a phone on the floor, no paper or pens (so no books) and couldn’t visit anything but .gov websites as GD blocked everything else, so you got to know everyone around you.
They didn’t allow us to do that because in the past people just stole social security numbers and all types of shit, so you couldn’t have anything that could record information.
It was a funny/terrible job I had for a bit in school.
I kept getting stoned and napping thru my evening shifts. One day I went in and they were like “uh, we fired you dude, check your voicemail”, and indeed they had fired me.
But the 2nd funniest moment was only funny in hindsight; I had to call people and ask how they felt about Rod Blagoyovich after that job-selling thing, lol
A greasy Chicago politician, he was governor of Illinois when Obama got elected, and he basically auctioned off Obama’s senate seat, went to jail for it lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich
man i've always worked in business-to-business tech support call centers all the stories i've got are just people who fucked up and bought like $500,000 of the wrong thing all on contract and have to tell 'em "nah you fucked up lol".
i guess there was the guy at my old job who was impossible to talk to because all he'd ever talk about was updates in his life story that can basically be summarized as "our baby was born!! all the baby's bones are broken somehow, i dont know how!! CPS is getting involved and ive gone to like 10 different doctors trying to get an explanation to get CPS off my back!! my wife's divorcing me now i dunno what happened!!!" but damn that's just sad man i dont wanna think about that guy. last i heard he got fired for losing his shit and snapping at a caller
there was also the time my manager invited me to a strip club with him. idk about you but "come get horney in sorta-public with me!!" isnt the kinda thing i wanna do with my boss even if he's the kind of guy who's admitted to me he's tried any drug you can think of
I remember one time I took a call center gig while I was waiting for a buddy to get me in at his spot, just to get some checks. So boring. Cold calling leads to try to sell water purifier systems. You call their cards, and when you run out of cards you start calling the same cards again. Gross. I’d done a few stints in call centers so none of this was a surprise.
But after calling through my cards twice, I was not about to call a fucking third time, so I just took a smoke break and went on my phone. Did it at my desk too, I had already hit the quota of whatever.
What got me was how some other non-manager lead person came up to me and was like “I saw you were on your phone at your desk. If you want to be a part of our family, you have to be present here”.
Like wtf. Family? What kind of horrific family is this? Bear in mind, it’s dead silent in there except for dialing, you can’t even see the other callers. There’s no break room. I didn’t even know anybody’s name, there’s no introductions.
Just really pierced through how all these jobs are built from people with lies and self-delusions. I felt sorry for her, because she’s suffering under one of those same as me.
