My first job ever was in a call center, and boy was it a trainwreck. I put up with it until I got fired after six weeks there – I should have quit sooner, but I honestly didn't realize how awful the place was because I had no frame of reference. It was so stressful that I would get physically ill every morning just knowing I had to go back there. Mind you this was circa 2007 or 2008, I think.
Some of this place's greatest hits were:
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Hands down, the manager was the worst. Told us things all the time like, “If you're just here for a paycheck, you're in the wrong office!” and “Do or do not, there is no try” when we weren't getting as many sales as she felt we should. Loved to tell us how she made money hand over fist as a phone sales representative and how she “took one for the team” to become a manager and make less, all for us. She also got pregnant while I was there and was absolutely insufferable, screeching at all of us that our failure to make adequate sales was causing her stress and she “couldn't afford” to get stressed (meanwhile the heavily pregnant lady two desks down from me never complained about stress). She was also micro-managing and I got in trouble for every single thing while I was there. I got put in the “hot seat” right by her office window so I could be monitored at all times like an ill-behaved child. Meanwhile, her favorite sales reps would curse/scream at customers and never suffered any consequences.
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The manager encouraged us to do whatever we had to do to get the necessary party on the phone, up to and including faking urgency and straight-up lying. She proudly boasted about how she once got past a pesky secretary on the phone by saying the manager's child had been in an accident and she had to speak with him immediately and made her voice sound very urgent and concerned. When she got the obviously upset manager on the phone, she changed her tone to perfectly chipper and asked him to try a free subscription. She got mad when he gave her an earful and hung up.
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Had to clock out to leave our work stations for any reason like using the toilet or going to get a snack. The manager's reasoning for this was, “I'm not paying you to pee!” I learned after termination that this was illegal because in my state, any break under 20 minutes has to be paid. It also meant I was making less than minimum wage.
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We recorded calls all the time, but without that whole “this call may be monitored for quality control purposes” bit. This is because the way the system worked, getting people to sign up for a free-but-not-really-free subscription involved recording them agreeing to it and the recording was considered a verbal contract and apparently that was enough. That way, when the customer called and threw a fit about being in collections over the “free” subscription, management would whip out the tape, play back where the customer said “yes” to the trial subscription and tell them to get bent because they “signed” a “contract.” In my state, it is also illegal to record someone without their permission or knowledge, soooo this crap was probably also illegal (again, I didn't know until much later).
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The manager had been in jail for embezzling from a former employer, like she stole a healthy six figures from them (someone told me this about her). This wasn't a secret, I found the documents from the court case very easily online – just search “(manager's name) embezzlement” and it's the first result. I contacted corporate and let them know a thief was in charge of a sales office and I got put on job probation the next morning and fired that same afternoon for “not making enough sales.” I don't think it was a coincidence, especially since nobody was making enough sales that month.
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We offered people “free trial” subscriptions and told people they could cancel anytime to avoid being charged. Sounds simple enough, yeah? Well here's the thing: the trial subscription was only four weeks long starting from the moment the sales call ended, but the first issue of the subscription – which contained the cancellation form – arrived after five weeks. So there was no way to cancel it before being charged and customers didn't know until they got collection calls for non-payment of a service they didn't know they purchased because we had to make it sound like it was totally free.
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The mail from the office looked very, very much like junk mail. I believe this was an intentional design so people would be more likely to throw it away, thus not cancelling their trial. I think the company was more interested in getting people sent to collections to make money. Did I mention the company who offered the subscriptions had their very own equally scummy collection agency?
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Insane, impossible sales goals and alleged rewards. Like win an all-expenses-paid ten-day cruise to some exotic location! All you have to do is make 80+ sales every single day for six months straight! Mind you even the best salespeople often did not make more than a dozen “sales” a day. We were supposed to ring a bell every time we made a sale and go “got one!” I never rang it because I knew every person I made a “sale” to would be fighting with collections for months over the subscription.
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New people getting interviewed every single week because new hires left constantly.
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The ad for the job said something like, “Sick of working for peanuts? Come work for (company) and make $18 an hour!” Got to the interview and we were told that if we make enough sales for long enough, we could work our way up to $18 an hour, but that we'd start at minimum wage. It was a group interview and half the people walked out when they heard that. Don't ask me why I stayed.
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I was forced to sell a subscription to what was obviously a young girl (like maybe 11 or 12 years old) when my computer dialed her family's business number. I have to assume it was a small business or maybe something run out of their home and there were no job titles. This poor kid probably just said yes to everything because she happened to pick up the phone and thought the call sounded important, and Mom and Dad weren't there to intervene.
About a decade after I got fired from this place, I received a check for about $200 for back wages. Better late than never, I suppose. The company itself is still operating to this day, but I am very happy to report that the outlet where I worked got shut down very shortly after I left.