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I’ve worked at many call centers, my first and lowest bar was West (now Alorica). They would do things like hold you 30 minutes past the end of your shift. In other words, you literally couldn’t punch out until they decided it was time for you to leave (up to 30 minutes). Good luck trying to plan for things after work if you had a bit of a drive ahead of you.
It’s been a crazy time for me. I basically left my COVID-19 job of front desk receptionist to work at a small accounting firm who said they would train me on taxes… then decided they didn’t have time to train me and let me go. So scrambling for a new job, I ended up finding an ad for GameStop customer service at Atento on Facebook. Apparently it’s the 3rd largest call center company in the word, with the vast majority of the company in South
Hiring process was painfully easy. Got a call telling me the pay which was fair, and that it would include chat, email and phone. That mixture made it sound much more palatable than 100 percent calls.
There was a miscommunication about what time training started, so I showed up at 8 am because it was the earlier of the two times. We waited until for the rest of the class. There was a huge number of internet issues; spotty connections, a lot of the computers wouldn’t connected on the ethernet cables, so some had to use wifi (which wasn’t encrypted nor had access to company programs). Internet issues weren’t ironed out until around 11 am.
We used a mixture of Zoom/Google Meets/Microsoft Teams to do the training class, with the trainer at the front of the room. Oh, we’re in cubicles btw. Instead of something like a projector like most classes, we’re doing a zoom meeting with spotty internet where the audio keeps cutting out. The class is constantly pausing because the internet can’t keep up.
I haven’t even mentioned the computers….. small HP laptops with no numpad and an old monitor is all we have. That’s right…. no mouse or full size keyboards. Imagine having to type long order numbers using the top row instead of a numpad. I’ve had to bring my OWN mouse in order to get by during training. They claim they ordered some…. but I’ve been here for 3 weeks so I have extreme doubts about that. Also there’s a shocking amount of permissions available on the computers themselves… I can login with my personal email, change settings, browse any website because there’s no blockers, doesn’t seem to be ANY sort of firewalls or virus protection… this place is a nightmare from an IT standpoint and just begging to be hit with a virus or have customer information leak. When I asked one of the IT guys… they said the client didn’t ask for it so they didn’t provide it. Mind blowing.
Then there’s the system itself… GameStop has 45(!) different apps/portals to manage its backend of customer orders, PowerUp Rewards, and GameInformer Subscriptions, among other things. I’m use to sometimes juggling as many as 3 or 4 apps to accomplish things…. but we’ve already had to juggle as many as 7 or 8, through a mixture of Chrome, Internet Explorer…. and a second instance of Chrome that won’t let me combine it with other windows. Most have different usernames, I have two emails for some reason, and some will let me change my password while others won’t. I can’t save most of them because Internet Explorer says it will… and then it doesn’t. And the solution? “Open a Notepad and put your usernames/passwords in there and save it to your desktop.” Real advice from the trainers.
At least they’re trying to consolidate some apps into ZenDesk…. but there’s no reason why I should have to pull one portal for checking an order status, another one to check inventory of an item, and another to process a return. It’s pretty absurd.
The whole office smells like old coffee and sadness. The breakroom only has tap water, two old smelly water fountains and an ice machine that apparently has been sitting broken for over a year. Even the coffee pots have stuff floating in the pots. At least there’s a Market Star to buy drinks and snacks, but that adds up very quickly if you just want water that is cold and doesn’t have a questionable taste/smell.
You get your normal two 15 minute breaks and 1 hour unpaid lunch, but if you need to use the restroom outside of your breaks and lunch, it’s the same aux so if you take a 5 minute restroom break they would you to take only a 10 minute break later at your scheduled time. Never seen something so ridiculous. Before they got access to our punch in/out system today, I was just straight up told there was no restroom Aux and you shouldn’t be going to the restroom more than 3 times a day.
Thankfully, after 3 weeks of grinding away, I finally landed something better and I plan to quit tomorrow in a blaze of glory. I got the news this morning, but unfortunately forgot my badge and they want that back or else they’ll take money out of my paycheck.
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