The title is as good as a tldr, if you want to know more details, you can read it below. Sorry for bad formatting, I’m on mobile.
So I’m from a small country known as Belgium and have done a few different jobs in both retail and call centers. Now this 1 job in a call center was the worst ever. For starters, I was originally hired to do customer service in a chill team for a great phone company. The manager who hired me, was the one who tested me during my second job interview and he was set on having me in his team. Had I been, I’d probably still be working there. Sadly, higher ups decided I would be better to work in customer service for a very unpopular electricity providing company. A company known for shitty customer service and for being way to expensive. At first I was hopeful, thinking that they hire me and others with the intention of improving customer service, but nope. At first a week of training started, in which me and my fellow trainees got told that a customer has to be left in wait for at least 15 minutes, preferably 30 minutes before we answer their call, because this will make them have to pay more phone bills (company didn’t use free to call phone number because they didn’t want to pay the fee) and less likely to call again later. Then we got told that we always have to do as much as possible to upsell anything to the callers. Someone calls because they are not happy about the bills? Try to sell them a more expensive service, and why not throw in another side service they’ll never need anyway? And more things like that. In stead of solving issues, we were told to just sell more. Of course this meant that, on the field, I wouldn’t give the statistics the bosses wanted. I cannot work the way they wanted. Customer service (propper one) has actually been a part of my upbringing. My mother is a shift leader in a call center with propper custom service and she thought me everything, my previous call center job had to let me go because they had to close down, but did voice how happy they always were with my work. Now the customer service job of the story was not happy. I actually solved problems and helped people get out of trouble. Honestly I am sure I actually saved them contracts as people are less inclined to leave when they’re helped in stead of sold unescesery things. Never the less, supervisors and floor management didn’t like my sale numbers and berhated me about it every week. I ended up just looking for another job pretty soon, even spending my breaks having job interviews on the phone (my mobile phone, if course) At the end of the first month, they told me that i shouldn’t come back next month. My supervisor literally said “you obviously don’t like it here, you’re not even trying to do your job and I noticed you’re looking for another job. So go already.” The day I came by for my paycheck and my stuff, I met the manager who originally wanted me in his team and told him everything. He was sad to hear that this happened and confirmed that the floor I worked on never has people longer than a few months. He wished me luck and regretted not being able to have me just transferred. Turns out the floor manager where I worked and my supervisor had been telling lies about me to get permission to fire me. That day, at home, I open up my paycheck and immediately notice that it is way to low. So I started calculating. I payed full time, which is 8 hours + half an hour lunch break and a 5 minutes coffee break. I was supposed to also get compensated for every train ticket I had to pay to get there. I was supposed to have earned at least € 1 200 for the pay that month. But actually got around € 700 in total. The train compensation was supposed to add up to€ 160 but only got € 80. I contacted the company, who said I hadn’t worked all the hours I was supposed to. Yes I had! I clocked in every day, 2 minutes before I had to start and clocked out sometimes up to 30 minutes late to make sure i had no loose ends which could confuse another employee. So I went to an agency that specialises in helping people in such situations. They went over the paycheck with me and talked to the company. Turns out, the clock in/out system (which was on the computers we used for working) didn’t register my hours properly. It missed at least an hour a day, sometimes 2 hours. Sadly I had no proof of having worked those hours, except the word of 2 colleagues I could get along with. Making it a court case was way too risky and might end up costing more than I could get out of it, so I decided to go for the “no drama” route. But I made sure to tell my colleagues to keep an eye on their paycheck. Turns out, everyone on that floor was missing pay, but no one ever considered looking at their paycheck before. The place is now closed due to bankruptcy, I hope those I could get along with at least got themselves a better job now. Luckily I did.
submitted by /u/Nekofy
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