One Night @ the Call Center

I started my professional life with call centers around ten years ago. I spent around six years bearing the torture of hectic schedules, commuting problems, graveyard shifts, irregular sleeping & eating timings & what not.

But still I feel this occupation tickles your funny bones at times.

Here are a few amusing incidents that happened with me in my line of duty that I would like to share with you’ll.


Technical Support : I had this customer who was a very funny guy. Or should I say stupid. Someone like Gilligan. I had been trying to help this customer open up a computer chassis for about 15 minutes but Mr Gilligan some how could not locate the screws at the back of the CPU cabinet. To any question that I asked him he would answer me loud & clear but the moment I asked him if he could see the screws there would be complete silence. It seemed to me that the word ’’SCREW’’ reminded him of some ghostly adventures related to screws or may be he remembered that last time he was screwed by some tough guy. I however managed to coax him & find out why he kept quite when I told him to locate the screws. What Mr. Gilligan used to do was keep the phone down & go under the table to locate the screws which would have been difficult for me to locate if I were to do it the same way.

Finally, accepting my fault for not giving proper instructions I asked him to unplug all the cables & lie down the cabinet on the table so that he could view the screws clearly. Once again there was silence. I could not control my patiences & I shouted Mr. Gilligan are you there. Suddenly I heard a faint voice shouting from the speaker phone, ’’Yes, I am lying on the floor but still cant see the screws’’. Haa haa haa.... That was enough for me to split into laughter.


Technical Support : This was the one where I had become Gilligan. I was helping an old man troubleshoot a computer system in the early hours around 4am. Suddenly, while on the call I dozed off. Not receiving any instructions from my end for a couple of seconds or may be minutes - I dont know how long I enjoyed that nap - the old man suddenly roared ’’Hello’’. That hello was loud enough to have me wide awake. In that stage I forgot the problem that the customer had & was not even aware of the steps that I had troubleshot with him. I order to avoid embarrassment I decided to use the golden rule, the one which had always saved my skin when I had fallen asleep on calls. I went ahead & asked the customer ’’Ok Sir, can you tell me what do you see on your screen’’. This was to judge as to how far I had reached while trouble shooting so that I could continue instructing further. See how smart I am. I had not even finished the sentence when the old man roared back, ’’How am I to do that with all these cards & cables scattered arround?’’ It was then I realized that I had made this fellow also open up his CPU cabinet.

Sometime’s I still wonder what would Mr. Gilligan have done, if he would have been in there instead of the old man.


Online Shopping : Buyers of NEXT Directory UK could use items sold on the site on a trial basis 14 days. If the customer was not satisfied with the item he/she just had to give us a call & we would arrange for a collection & the customer would get a 100% money refunded instantly.

One day a lady in her mid 30’s called up saying that she wanted a bra to be collected from her place. As per the set rules I had to confirm with her if she had used it to which she replied in the affirmative stating that she had tried it just once. I informed her that I would not be able to arrange for the bra to be collected because of hygiene reasons as lingerie’s once worn could not be returned. To this she got angry & questioned me that does that mean I can never buy a bra from our site. I replied that she could go ahead & buy as many bra’s as he wanted but could not return it to us if worn even once. To this she revolted, ’’How can you tell if a bra is comfortable unless you have worn it? CAN YOU?’’ The spontaneous reply that I blurted out was, ’’How would I know?’’. God bless me after that.



Collections : I being into collections would accept Credit card payments over the phone. Once I had an old man on the line, somewhere in his late eighties. As usual in one of my conversations after inquirying about the the type of card while taking payments I said, ’’Can I take YOUR amount please’’.... ’’Can I take YOUR CARD number please’’.... ’’Can I take YOUR EXPIRY date please’’. To which the customer immediately replied, ’’Very soon, son.’’

It was only after I heard my manager laugh out loudly at the other end of the room who had barged in & was listening to my call did I realize that I had misworded the sentence & said ’’YOUR EXPIRY date’’ instead of ’’YOUR CARDS EXPIRY date please’’.


Many more real life experiences to be added soon so keep reading...

Outsourcing - Everything that shines is not GOLD.

The concept of ’Outsourcing’ was considered a boon when it first started a few years ago.

Outsourcing everything overseas, specially to asian countries. And this gave birth to the BPO industry. The western countries started outsourcing for quite a number of reasons. One of them being cheap labour. And we were more than happy to accept it, considering the revenue the country would earn in bargain.

Did we take a right descision then? Its time to introspect. What have these call centres done to the youth of today. You may say provided them financial security by offering jobs as early as they enter high school. Just jobs, no, high paying jobs. True...

Now lets flip the coin & see the other side of it. The true picture which we have been ignoring all these years.

By offering high paying jobs [as per Indian standards] at a very young age they have killed our creativity & the process to think. Made us in to vegetables. Not to mention the living habbits & the addiction that the youngsters get into as money flows freely. Also giving rise to many other criminal activities in the long run.

They have made us slaves. You are not allowed to sleep in the night. Your shift changes either weekly, fortnightly or monthly. You are monitored in every possible way. There are camera’s all over the office to capture your movements. Access cards which you need to swipe against the access card readers at every door you pass through. Your calls are barged into, in the name of quality analysis. Snap shots are taken of your screen without your knowledge & a watch is kept of every activity that you do. The fact is they spy on you coz they dont trust you.

The other reason given for outsourcing was the efficiency, dedication & commitment that Indians show towards work. Indians are smart & intelligent. But you are not allowed to take your own discissions. There are procedures set & you are expected to follow them even when you know they are useless.

If they really prefer Indians, why are visas denied to Indians left right & center. Why are there stringent measure taken when a person intends to work in their land. Think about it.

India is blamed of security breach & breach of data protection when issues’s like personal data including social security numbers are said to have leaked. How do they know its happening.... Did we go and tell them.... Food for thought.... You know what I am trying to say.

People out there are paid per hour, where as we are paid per shifts. Out here breaks are not given on time in most of the case [personal experience, have been in call centres for seven years], as we are over burdened by work. We are being burnt out.

These factors affect our health in the long run. Our social life is for a toss as your family does not know when you are in & when you are out. You do not grow in any way. No time to persue your hobbies or recreate yourself. Leaves not granted when the need arises & if you are unwell thats the time they enjoy to see you slog it out.

What have we gained guys by putting our health, social life, growth on the line. Just a few thousand rupees. Do you think its worth it. Trust me guys it a dogs life.

Ever wondered, where would have these people have been if they would have joined call centers then....

Rajiv Gupta [GM of Hewlett Packard]
Vinod Dahm [Father of the Pentium Processor]
Azim Premji [CEO of Wipro Industries]
Sabeer Bhatia [Creator of Hotmail.com]
Arun Netravalli [AT & T-Bell Labs]
Dhirubhai Ambani [Entrepreneur]
Ekta Kapoor [The Queen of Indian Television]
Kiran Bedi [Top Cop]
Ajit Balakrishnan [Founder Rediff.com]

These are just a handful of people who have made a mark for them selves in the society & brought India on the world map. Its because of their selfless efforts that Indians, as I said in my review are considered as commited, intelligent & hardworking by the world.

And some of them have indeed played a decent role in improving the countries economy. We do not need call center’s to improve our countries economy. In fact they are destroying our future doctors, entrepreneur, architech’s, lawyers, etc.

People are loosing their identity even before it is made. Infact call centres in most of the cases dont even allow you to reveal your true identity. Leads to identity crisis in the long run.

Oppurtunities dont make people. People make oppurtunities.....

I doubt if we will have any more icons as these, after the trend that we see here.

I’d like to ask just one question to these countries - "When are you’ll outsourcing your defense system to us. We will provide you with cheap & efficient service......."

What do you think guys? Do you think they will ever outsource it.......

Shall await your answer.....