Not even a day into my new data entry role, my coworkers and I were assigned a couple of hours of phone calls to do a day. I mean, nowhere in the job description does it say “regular phone calls for outreach.” It's a data entry position. The job description only asks for data entry experience, though the description itself was a bit sparse all things considered (by sparse, I mean… two sentences. One about attention to detail, the other about effective communication).
Anyway, so doing these phone calls as a weird side quest is not too bad. Most of the time, I am just entering data with an audiobook running in the background. Then, I prep myself for the calls (I have always struggled with making phone calls, but my experience at my previous front desk role helps a lot here), bang them out, and move back to data entry.
Entering data itself is boring, but it's the fact that I can listen to anything in the background while doing it that makes it MUCH more tolerable. The phone calls? I'm stressed when researching why the call needs to be made, actually calling the person, then following up afterward with notes in our system. I wouldn't have willingly signed up for a job like that, but I figured, hey, at least it beats making phone calls my entire shift, right?
“We want you to start prioritizing the calls during your shifts. We won't give you any new assignments for data entry until the calls are done,” management orders. Now data entry is OVERTIME. I can only do the job I signed up for… during overtime. Yep. Also, I can't do overtime unless they assign me more sheets for data entry??? Moreover, my job measures performance by counting how many sheets I complete every week. Is that metric just irrelevant now?
So if you asked me three weeks ago what my role was, I'd say, “Oh, I'm a data entry guy.” If you ask me now, I'd say, “Oh, I'm looking for a new job.”