During my life I’ve worn several hats to earn a salary; sometimes there was no salary at all. My wife had to take care of me. Life is like the sea, it has its high tides and its low tides.
After being a Financial Director for the Panama Bureau of Tourism (Instituto Panameño de Turismo), I lost my job because there was a changing of the guard. The PRD (Partido Revolucionario Democrático) won the elections in 1994 and the new General Director wanted to have his own team and needed my place. I knew that was going to happen, as soon as the election results were known. So I submitted my resignation, and that was that.
Finding a new job was most difficult because of my age. I was 48. In order to keep the ball rolling, my wife had to enter the job market. She was hired as a waiter in a small restaurant and became the bread provider of our home. I stayed home and became the house keeper the best I could—I lacked the skills to cook and all that stuff. I had to learn how to mop, sweep, wash clothes, wash the dishes and occasionally cook very basic food—like boiled eggs. (Omar smiles.)
After a drought of ten years, I found a job as a CSP (Customer Service Provider) for a company called SITEL. It was, and still is, the largest call center in the country. The pay was scant, but nevertheless it was a stable job with paid vacations, Social Security benefits, XIII Month and regular paychecks every two weeks. In Spanish it’s called The Quincena-–the most anxiously awaited day of the month. Payday was a sweet word for us.
My job at SITEL was to give customer service to customers of a U.S. company called XM Radio. They marketed satellite radios and were very popular in 2007. XM Radio later merged with Sirius Satellite Radio and became the largest satellite radio provider in the United States.
It was a stressing job. Everything I said was in a script and I couldn’t stray from the structured job description. If I did not follow the script to the word, my supervisor would deduct points from my performance and place them in a large sheet of paper pasted on a wall for everyone to see. I was embarrassed to see my name printed there beside a mediocre performance.
Sometimes customers would ask where I was from, due to my deep Spanish accent. They usually thought I was from India. Frequently they would not want to talk to me. They would say, “Sir, I don’t want to talk to you. I’m not giving my Social Security Number to a corrupt Indian guy. Switch me over to an American operator. I want to talk to an American.” I tried to persuade them that I could help him or her (it was part of my job to do so), but they insisted or hanged up the phone. I remember crying at the end of the shift. It was so humiliating, but we needed the money.
I hanged in there until July 3, 2008 when I finally retired after filling in my application with the Panama Social Security. Since I had very good salaries in the past, my pension was generous. For a change, I didn’t have to memorize a script and nobody could fire me anymore, as long as I lived. Our problems to buy food were over. It was Nirvana. I couldn’t believe it for several months. The quincenas were paid regularly and we went happily soon after to buy our food at El Machetazo, the nearest supermarket to our house. With all the time in the world, I became an amateur photographer and a neophyte blogger and here I am writing to you guys now.
Below is a picture of an award I received for being one of the best customer service agents in the second quarter of 2007. At least management didn’t consider my English accent awful and my overall job performance was up to par. When I got the award, I felt like a million bucks. I felt useful for a change. The simple plastic award is sitting on my computer desk as a reminder of the most embarrassing job I ever had in my entire professional career. The good thing though, is that it kept us going for several years. In every difficult situation, there is always a bright side. Not everything is black and gloomy. Good Day.
Snapshot of the Finalist Agent Q2 2007 award I received at Sitel, a call center in Panama City, Panama. I received a basic salary of $500.00 a month plus sales commissions for satellite radios sold. The slogan of the company was Vision, Passion and Purpose. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
I have been in your position twice, Omar. The first experience was as a customer service rep for a cell phone company. The best part of the job was the hours. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m with an hour lunch. But the worst part of the job was that NOBODY calls to say how much they like the service. It’s ALWAYS trying to smooth things over and just letting people vent their anger.
The second time was for a company in Fort Lauderdale that made boat maintenance products. It was an okay job with lousy pay, but most of the calls were from people who wanted information rather than calling with complaints though there were plenty of them.
A lot of the job was dealing with dumb people. I remember the last call I took perfectly. It went like this:
“Good afternoon, how can I help you?”
“I bought some of your awning cleaner and I’m a little confused by the instructions.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Well, it says mix one part cleaner with three parts water…”
“Yes. What’s the problem?”
“What’s a part?”
“A part can be whatever you want it to be.”
” Don’t understand.”
“Well, do you have a shot glass?”
“Yes. Then you’d use one shot of cleaner and three shots of water.”
There was a long, silent pause, and then the caller said, “That won’t be nearly enough to do the job.”
The only response I could come up with that was…”How did you ever find your way home from the store? Did you leave a trail of bread crumbs to follow?”
Twenty minutes the boss came to my cubicle and told me to pack my things and leave.
Hi Richard, that was a sure way to ask for the pink slip. I assume they listened to your calls to evaluate you. They did that in Panama; it was very stressing knowing that your supervisors were sort of “spying” on you.
Worst job I ever had was a call center. I’m so glad I’m now a “pensionado”. I can’t get fired, no matter what.
Take Care,
Omar.-
Morning,
I “did time” as a product support tech for a company that made aircraft electronics and 99% of the calls were from the shops that installed the equipment. The industry is very tightly regulated by the FAA as one would guess, and one would also surmise that only professionals would be calling.
One would be wrong on the second point. haha
I would patiently read down the list of solutions for why the device the shop had installed was not functioning properly and to each solution I would receive the same answer, “we checked that already”. What I discovered was that all the shop was wanting was a check list to things that could be causing the problem BEFORE they started troubleshooting. Once I figured that out, I could save time by telling them up front that I would fax a list of things to try (no web back then). Only one technician ever admitted that they hadn’t started troubleshooting yet.
The worst part was, almost no one ever returned a call telling me what had fixed their problem! In 2 years on the job, one shop owner called back and told me the screw up was all their fault and how they had fixed it. haha
I rarely call customer service now, the web has almost any answer and email handles most transactions (and leaves a record) but due to that job, I have empathy for the folks that I do call and I have never failed to get help.
jim and nena
fort worth, tx
Hi Jim and Nena:
I echo with your words about having empathy for CSPs. They do a wonderful job and almost never get recognized with a nice Thank You letter or a friendly or courteous call. Most of the time the are bombarded by angry customers who don’t even think before they call.
Regards,
Omar.-
I got fired from Southwestern Bell. I was a customer service trainee, back in the days when nice ladies took information from people wanting to connect, disconnect or change service.
It was in the pre-computer days, and we were to enter information such as names and addresses on paper forms ruled into grids. There could be only one letter or numeral per square. They were small, and we were NOT to go outside the lines.
At the end of my six-week probation, I’d gone outside the lines too many times, and that was the end of my career with Ma Bell. Sigh. I never could color inside the lines as a kid, either.
Linda, those kinds of jobs are not for humans; they’re for the birds or Japanese robots. Being fired from that job was opening the doors for you to do better things. And look at you now, one of best English writers I’ve ever known. Through you I’m finally learning the English language.
Bye,
Omar.-
Five years ago the term “social security” was new to American ears. Today it has significance for more than forty million men and women workers whose applications for old-age insurance accounts have been received; this system is designed to assure them an income for life after old age retires them from their jobs.