I have worked for TBE for probably 7 months now. I should have taken the first warning sign seriously when my trainer for the PSO job not only failed to show up and sign in to the training session on time, but the story he gave for being late which was a victimizing one about his being arrested for eating on public transport did not jive with the one the secretary told about him standing outside smoking a cigarette. Regardless, I moved on only to listen to him absolutely humiliate the one other girl training with me and telling her to leave the conference. Lucky girl. The trainer, though degrading and condescending enough, isn't the worst of it.
I typically work from 6am there time to 2pm their time. From 6-8 I have an absolutely lovely supervisor. Pamela is amazing and super supportive. She was always giving me big 'woohoo's for my work on her shift. However, once she was off shift, I was handed over to two men. One, who sounds normal, was a great coach to me, believed I had a great voice and helped me through to not sound so nervous. That one I get rarely.
The other, whom I believe is named Tony, sounds gay (I have a hard time telling him apart from my trainer), and is possibly suffering from the worst case of vagina envy I have ever seen. Though he hasn't got the power, he has no problem jumping on line to tell me how horrible I'm doing in the last 10 minutes of work. I could have spent all morning with 30 minute hold times, but if I had two 3 minute calls, suddenly I'm not doing well enough and they 'can't keep me' if my averages stay this low. He's also suggested I call Sammers for more training more than once, to which Sammers told me to ignore Tony because I had, each time, a 10-25 minute hold time, with repeat customers, so I was doing better than most of the girls there anyway.
Tony has been a constant thorn in my side since the day he heard children screaming on the tv in the other room and assumed my children were in the room with me. 1. I would never put my children in that kind of position. 2. I'm sorry he's that confused that America's Funniest Videos is enough reason for him to just start hating on an employee. He has lied to me about how busy the line was, berated me for things I can't control (when the power goes out, it goes out. I live in a rural place so, no, I cannot just 'walk to the nearest payphone') and all in all makes doing the work completely unbearable.
As if having Tony make this job hard isn't enough (he does so like to pop on my line, tell me I'm terrible, and then run away like the coward he is before I can even try to respond), my line, because I'm so good at it, has become a training line for Sammers. During training, Sammers told me never to allow for dead-air on silent calls. But during real work with the normal sounding supervisor who was so supportive, he told me to give the caller a few seconds to answer first, before spouting off into a 'silent caller' story, because most of these guys are nervous too. The second action has worked best for me, giving the caller a few seconds to respond instead of just cutting him off. However, on one of the training calls (and they don't tell you they are on your line when they do this) I waited those few seconds and the guy hung up. At which point, Sammers came on and said, and I quote
"And that is Exactly what you Don't do with a silent caller. Who is this?"
"Jordyn."
"Jordyn, I'm using your line for training. Now that you've show us what not to do, do you think you could show us how to do it correctly."
I apparently did just that for the rest of my shift, but that's beyond the point. He tried to humiliate me in front of other trainees. I hope they all took that as a hint and dropped off the line immediately, but I doubt it, because this is the kind of job you take when you need money and you need it badly. This was not professional or respectable behavior, and that pretty much sums up the attitude held toward the employees of this business.
Another issue I have is trying to call in if something happens and I can't make it to shift. I can call Pamela's line. She gave me her number. She also tried to give me the next supervisor's number too. But every time I call that number I get that the line is no longer in service. I have searched the web and can't seem to find their full website no matter how hard I try. So I can't find the correct number for the second supervisor, if there is one in service at all. I also have asked HR (which should stand for human resources) for the numbers and have tried to report my absences to them only to be told that I have to call in, and that the HR address I have is only for schedules (another thing I had to drag out of the decent male supervisor, since they didn't bother giving me the email address for that when my 3 week training was up), and yet HR has yet to give me the numbers that I can apparently only get from supervisors if they stay on my line long enough for me to ask for them.
The callers themselves are terrible. I have had to build up quite the iron stomach for people who want to f* their daughters or just random little girls. Though I was told I wouldn't have to do anything illegal and that supervisors would cut in, that has not once happened and holy man have I had to deal with some ugly, depraved men. From child molesters to sadistic mutilation, I have to shut myself down when I am faced with these kinds of people, just to keep from needing a counselor, and I'm a very open-minded and understanding person, normally.
The hang ups are horrible. I damn well know they count them into my hold time because I keep count on how many hang-ups and Looking-for calls I get during a shift and the only way the numbers add up is if they add in those calls that last less than a minute, which is just greedy and wrong of them. It's full out taking advantage of their employees. Not to mention that they never cut these guys off. There has to be some system for blocking those who are so terrible with this habit, either mean or deranged or whatever their problem is, so that they aren't screwing up our hold time. But TBE apparently hasn't come across that technology yet.
Or just flat out doesn't care. It's been my experience that though certain supervisors care enough to threaten my job on a weekly basis, they don't know when I'm supposed to be on or when I'm not supposed to be on. They have no clue when my shift begins or ends (which is annoying considering I'm supposed to wait for their blessing to get off line). They don't even know who they are talking to most of the time because they don't care to check as they listen in. There is no complaints department and nothing I can do to try to get this stuff sorted out and obviously I cannot just write HR, which is apparently there only for scheduling, and not even for re-scheduling. Hell, I'm online with them right now and have been sitting here for 15 minutes of hang ups past my scheduled time, because I obviously have nothing better to do (family, husband, whatever) for them to report to ME on time and on schedule with respect or dignity.
The only good thing about this job is that I get my pay consistently with one hiccup, which was when the company was apparently bought out by another or changed payroll companies. However, though they require a minimum of 20 hours/week, I cannot even count on that, because if it is slow, they will let me go for an hour and, should I come back and it's still slow, they will let me off shift, so there are some weeks were I barely manage 10 hours.
To make it clear, I do not hate this Job. I've made many good calls and have several people who look for me (it's unfortunate that they can't hit an extension number and just get me, instead of driving down everyone's hold times, another piece of technology that TBE hasn't figured out). I have regulars that I enjoy talking to every time they call in. I don't mind being a part of their fantasy, even if some of them are a little disturbing. There is a big difference between talking about it and doing it. What makes this job so unbearable is how mean, degrading and unorganized those who are in charge are while I'm working. That's the sad part. I'm one of those personalities who could do this for hours almost every day. And I'm good at it. But the company's policy of treating the employees like they actually are sluts has already got me looking for another job with more respect involved.
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