Sound of my white keyboard.
Waking up at exactly 2:45 AM.
Overtime.
Customers.
Patience.
That's exactly the thing that is happening in the four corners of my room five days in a week, sometimes six.
Working in this field for already 2 years is actually easy now. I've been dealing with different people, with different personalities, and different approach. Some are fine and some are not. Some are grateful, and most of the time they are not and I do not know why, to be exact.
Working in a call center needs a lot of patience, which I learned and established in me for two years already.
Why is my title, "Hi Valued Customer."? Because that is where the conversation starts. The moment the chat came in, whether I like it or not I need to greet them, with respect.
In my work, we are serving people. We are actually called "Bayaning Puyat". It is because most call center agents has a graveyard shift, it means we are assigned to work from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM which supposed to be a time to get a good sleep, however we sacrificed it all as it was the job we entered to.
Some people who haven't experienced working on the field I am in right now says that, "Its easy working there." "That we are just chilling in the office, with free coffee and aircon." "That with call center is only good for those who do not have a profession." "That it is easy to work there."
Well its not.
It was never easy. Yes we have that free coffee and free aircon however, despite of the comfort we have, there's no day that we cannot receive hurtful words from our customers. All the curses they thrown to us, even though we cannot see them still hurts. In two years, it still hurts. Like, yes sometimes we can get used to it, but sometimes we cannot help it. And it is really testing our patience day by day. And we cannot do anything to change and control it.
At the end of the day, they are our valued customers. That we should respect and give attention to even if it means hurting us emotionally.
But working here does not always means receiving those curses. We cannot deny the fact that we still have grateful customers which is more than enough to make us happy and continue what we are doing. We really do not expect our customers to praise us that much, we do not need them to commend us to our higher department. Hearing "Thank You's from them and giving us goodluck's" is more than enough. It feels like all the exhaustion we felt through out the day answering calls and chat will be vanished in a snap of a finger. Them being grateful is making us happy. I mean, who would not? You were able to help people and that what matters the most.
Here's the catch.
Valued? or even value itself bring such a broad meaning and message. Value does not only means an amount you need to pay for a certain things that you wanted to buy. If you will be talking about a person, it could mean his or her worth, or the deserve he has or he needs.
Connecting the experiences a call center agent like me to a real life situation matters. Why? Because in life, we have experienced obstacles. We have experienced failures. Rejection. We've been declined a million times. We fell. We lose hope. We almost stop. Sometimes we wanted to be valued as much as we valued them. Sad to say, we cannot please everybody. We cannot tell them what to do. We cannot tell them to treat us the way we wanted to be treated. And that'a fact.
But what matters the most, is how we cope up with this situations and how we handle it day by day. I mean, it is okay to feel like you are about to give up with what you are doing, but you tried your best to bounce back after the failure and choose to continue knowing that a better situation is waiting for you at the end of the way.
Instead of us getting all frustrated by the things we never expect to happen, we can always turn them all into positive thoughts. We can always consider them as challenges that we need to surpass and pass by. We can always choose to look at the brighter side of the way. We can try to make things happen in our own little way. After all, if what we try works, then it is not stupid; and if it will not, then it is a lesson. Keep on pushing. Keep on trying.
-MissJo 💜
