It was with much smiling, sending SMS's to my friends and more smiling that I received the SMS from the call center that I applied with. I was to start at 9:30 pm the next day for training. The aluminum thermos mug I bought from Robinson's Department Store last December could finally be put to good use.
I had no expectations about meeting interesting people, making new friends or encountering wise beings because I have been jaded by law school to a large degree. After failed attempts to get some sleep in the afternoon, I popped over to my workplace and went into Discovery Channel mode. Observation is key to surviving a new environment.
There were seventeen of us in the training room. Some of the trainees had already started chatting-up their seatmates and were beginning to form some sort of bond that would congeal them into a group.The questions "Do you have call center experience?" and "From what school did you graduate?" filled the air. I limited my interaction with my batchmates during the interview period. Everybody was euphoric for having gotten into the program.
It felt like I was back in the first day of law school. There was a loud group of people with call center experience, equivalent to the Carolinian Political Science majors in my class, that exuded vapors of arrogance and superiority over the inexperienced trainees. There was also a subgroup of people with call center experience, equivalent to the non-Carolinian Political Science majors, who disliked the loud group, but also had an air of subdued arrogance and were armed with high-pitched derisive laughter. There was also the sexy chick, around whom the straight guys sniffed, and the guy that asked too many questions to the point of absurdity. The silent, the meek and the loners were also represented.
As a certified loner, I gravitated towards the silent and the meek, drawing comfort from the knowledge that I am not alone at being alone. With the silent and the meek, I don't have to make noises to express that I enjoy their company. I just sit around and do my thing and know that everything's alright between me and them.
The training started with the obligatory Introduction and Why-Are-You-Here routine. "I'm bored. I have absolutely nothing to do and I'm here for the money" I declared. The other trainess wanted a career shift, complained that their previous companies used favoritism in making promotions, needed the extra cash for their studies or just wanted to feel independent from their parents. "I don't want to be an ordinary employee" and " I lack purpose in life" were my responses to the same questions asked by my Political Law professor and Property Law professor, respectively.
During breaks, others went outside, smoked and talked loudly about call center systems, call center software and hardware, call center experiences, call center practices and comparative analyses of different call center companies. My crowd and I just stayed in the training room and had casual conversation.It was the same thing I did in law school.
Our trainors used a laptop and an LCD projector to deliver the modules. They just talked and talked and occasionally made some jokes("It's FAX not FUCKS!"). I also had a judge professor who used a laptop and made jokes like:" How do the Japanese pronounce 'election'? It's ERECTION!". The suck-ups laughed the loudest and cracked some witticisms of their own. It was fun watching the familiar dance of Befriending the Teacher. The question guy also asked some far-out questions that drew mocking laughter from the loud group and the subgroup. He also made this comment:" I think the reason why we, Filipinos, work in a call center is that we want to prove to the foreigners that we can speak their language". Our trainors exerted some effort not to laugh.
I also learned some jargon like prepopulated, cascade, DNQ's, verifiers and fallouts. I can now comfortably string them together with my legalese viz. bad faith, mala in se, mora accipiende and jus sanguinis.
Our training ended at 5:30 am. We were given handouts and were told to study for an exam. We were also expected to have a working knowledge of the program by next week. There was a hint of competition in the air. I felt right at home.
No comments:
Post a Comment