A Day Not Worth Remembering

Last Monday I was tapped to work two hours more hours on top of my scheduled shift.  So I have to start early 3 am from the usual 5 am.  I don’t mind the extra work, more money for me right?

So since I have a habit of leaving for work two hours before my shift starts I quietly and sleepily left our home in Malabon city at 1 am.  I have traveled around Metro Manila for quite a number of years now.  I thought I was ready….. I thought wrong.

5 minutes into the trip the jeepney that I was riding on was forced to take a shortcut into one of Malabon’s slum area as a large part of Governor Pascual Ave. is being repaired (for the last couple of months now, mind you.)  I was seated in front of the vehicle right next to the entrance and a seat away from the driver.  The man next to me got off and another man wanted to sit in front as well.  So as a good citizen, I scooted over and I was now sitting next to the driver.  A few more minutes the jeepney stopped again to let more passengers in.  All of a sudden without warning or anything the man seating next beside me got punched in the head, then another punch on his back. Punch…punch…punch!  The man beside me can’t do anything, because the man who was hitting him, has the advantage of standing outside of the jeepney, after several more punches the attacker stopped, smiled at the man he was trashing and walked to the away a few feet, still smiling his silly grin as if everything was normal and beating a helpless man is an everyday thing.

I and the other passengers were shocked!  Nobody moved for a while.  Then the driver, finally getting back his senses started the jeepney and drove us out of there.  A few more minutes of stunned silenced and I picked up the courage and asked the man beside me if he knew his attacker.  The man just shook his head and with tears falling from his eyes said “I not even from around here…”  That means the man was just given a random beating, or what Filipinos called “napag-tripan lang“.  I have heard about these attacks since I was a kid, but I never thought I would witness one.  And you know what’s so shitty about it?  If I didn’t move next to the driver.  I would have been the one how got attacked!  For the first time of my call center life I got afraid of travelling during the wee hours of the morning.  The thought of me being attacked liked that stayed in my mind for the rest of the trip.

After transferring to another jeepney to go to Pasay,  another incident occurred, not a beating mind you.  I’m talking about…..extortion!  The jeep was already in Binondo in Tondo; Manila.  The driver stopped on the red light and was waiting for the light to change a man approached the driver and demanded 20 pesos.  The driver stunned couldn’t move, so the man screamed at his face. “Bente kako pahingi!” (“Give me a 20!”).  The man was already holding the throat of the driver, ready to choke to man.  The driver, reached into the till and gave a 20-peso bill to the man.  The said “Pasensya na ha! Wala na ko pamasahe.  Paminsan-minsan lang naman.” (Sorry, I don’t have money left to pay my fare.  I only do this once in a while.).  The driver ignored the man and hit the pedal.  As we where driving away, some passengers (including me) can’t help but looked at the man who threatened to strangle our driver.  The man noticed us, stopped and pointed at us, as if we were the guilty ones,  He was shouting at us,  But because the jeepney was too far away to understand what he said.

I arrived at the office shaken by what I saw during the trip.  I couldn’t forget the incidents up to now.

Almost all call center employees, encounter similar incidents on their way to work, even non-call center employees do.  But the call center employees, have a higher chance of seeing these kind of things because of the time of our work.  The govenment should really do something about the safety of the everybody, specially nurses, call center agents and other individuals whose time of work is erratic and are forced to travel during the wee hours of the night.  What are the cops doing?  Sleeping, maybe.  I don’t know.  I didn’t see one during those times.  I think call center companies, should initiate, giving transportation to all its employees to ensure a safe trip going to work.  Or maybe a car pool?!  Where agents who live in the same area can arrange to go to work together.

What do you think?

Happy Birthday: The Revenge of Nature

Last September 28 was my “ty-fourth” birthday!  It was also the aftermath of typhoon “Ondoy”!  I have never been so scared in my entire life. 

Sept 26, 2009: I remember my supervisor from work texting me at around 9 am asking me how was Malabon.  I was amused and touched at the same time, but there was no floods yet so I said: “It’s ok here, lots of rain, but no floods.  See you at work later!” 

 FAMOUS LAST WORDS!  After about 12 pm I noticed flood waters creeping in past our yard.  Being from Malabon, I’m used to floods but it didn’t bother me much.  after an hour it was just above the first steps of our house.  Still I didn’t mind it.  my brother texted me around 1 pm. He said that Kamagong in Makati  is already flooded and they are already stranded in the 2nd floor of their house.  That was the first time during that day that, Kamagong was only a few blocks a way from my office.  I hurriedly sent messages to my supervisor and manager.  Office was already flooded from the outside, but people are stranded already.  Damn!   I watched the waters creeping in and still did not notice anything to alarmed with, but then my manager advised me to not go to work anymore, as everywhere was flooded!  Bless her! I immediately inform my wife. 

Still nothing out of the ordinary happened on that day

Sept. 27, 2009:  My wife woke me up and inform me that the floods are about to enter our house.  I hurriedly went out and wade in waist deep flood waters and asked help from our neighbors.  What I saw was devastating, All houses on our streets are already flooded, we were the last house to get hit!  2 of my neighbors went inside with me, and we went ahead and lifted our refrigerator to the 2nd floor of my home.  When they left I struggled to unhook my mini component and took it to high ground.  My 2 housekeepers, helped me lift the 2 sofas in the living room to the 2nd floor as well.  Then we wait…….

Less than an hour the waters started coming in.  In my 5 years of living in Malabon, I have never saw floods this huge!  The weirdest thing about it, my wife was nonchalant about it.  Maybe because she’s really the one from Malabon, she was born there.  While I was just a transplant.  Still we waited.  The floods didn’t recede until the night of the 28th of September.

September 28. 2009:  Happy Birthday! or was it?  House was still flooded.  But still I was thankful.  What I saw on television made me cry, and I can’t help but think how lucky my family and I were.  We only got flooded.  While others in Marikina, Pasig and other parts of the Metro was flooded with not only water, but mud.  I can’t believe the devastation that happened.  

 

 

 I thank God everyday that although it was flooded, electricity wasn’t cut-off in our area, no one was hurt, no one died.  It turned out that I received the greatest gift from God on my birthday……. the safety of all the people I love! 

Ber

It’s September! The start of the “BER ” months! Officially it’s  my birthday month, but here in the Philippines it is also the Unofficial start of the Christmas season.  Radio stations specially the AM stations would start playing Christmas carols during the wee hours of the morning.  I remember when I was still an “innocent” highschool student I woke up to the tune of “Silent Night, Holy Night” every school day, starting September and all the way to January.  Yup January!  I think we have the longest Christmas season yet.

Before the Filipino’s discovered Halloween, Malls would normally start to have a Christmas motif in their decorations.   But now the malls starts putting up those tinsel ands bells, and snowmen after Halloween.  So to start off the season!  Here’s my favorite Christmas song for all of you.  Courtesy of mzmiau from YouTube and Jose Mari Chan. 

This is also the month when my brothers and I would start what we would like to get as a Christmas gift.  Haay…… Those were the days. 

 

WonderBots!

Here’s something funny, that I uploaded in YouTube!

Enjoy!

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

 

 It’s my rest day!  (yehey!)    It’s been awhile since I watched a movie so I went to Glorietta to watch the latest action packed movie - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

As a G.I. Joe fan I was glad that after all those super-hero movies, it’s time for G.I. Joe to get interpreted in big screen.  I enkoyed the movie, no doubt about it.  Most characters are almost true to their comic book counter parts, while some……

In the near future, weapons expert James McCullen  (Christopher Eccleston) has created a nanotechnology-based weapon capable of destroying an entire city. His company MARS sells four warheads to NATO, and the U.S. Army is tasked with delivering the warheads. Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are delivering the warheads when they are ambushed by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), who Duke recognized to be his ex-fiancee Ana Lewis. Duke and Ripcord are rescued by Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). They take the warheads to The Pit, G.I. Joe’s command center in North Africa, and upon arriving rendezvous with General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), the head of the G.I. Joe Team. Hawk takes command of the war-heads and excuses Duke and Ripcord, only to be convinced to have them join his group after Duke reveals that he knows the Baroness.

McCullen is revealed to be using the same nanotechnology to build an army of soldiers with the aid of the Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), planning on using the warheads to cause panic and bring about a new world order. Using a tracking device, McCullen locates the G.I. Joe base and sends Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) and the Baroness to retrieve the warheads with assistance from Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), inflicting casualties on several G.I. Joe soldiers. After a fight, Storm Shadow and the Baroness retrieve the warheads and take them to Baron DeCobray, the Baroness’s husband, for him to weaponize and use them to destroy the Eiffel Tower to serve as a showing of the warhead’s destructive power. Making their way to Paris, the Joes pursue them through the streets but are unsuccessful in stopping them from launching the missile. Duke manages to hit the kill switch, but in doing so he is captured and taken to McCullen’s base under the Arctic.

G.I. Joe locates the secret base and fly there as McCullen loads three missiles with nano-mite warheads. After Snake Eyes takes out one, Ripcord pursues the remaining missiles in a prototype Night Raven jet while Scarlett and her group infiltrate the base. While Scarlett and Snake Eyes attempt to shut down the Arctic base, with Heavy Duty leading an attack on Cobra’s forces, Duke learns that the Doctor is Rex Lewis, Ana’s brother believed to have been killed on a mission led by Duke four years ago. He was trapped in a bunker with Doctor Mindbender (Kevin O’Connor), disfigured in the blast which everyone presumed had killed him. The Baroness tries to free Duke but the Doctor reveals he has implanted her with nano-mites which has put her under his control for the past four years, admitting his amazement that she is resisting the programming. Attempting to kill Duke, McCullen ends up being facially burned as he flees with Rex to an escape vessel. Duke and the Baroness pursue him while the Joes fall back when Rex activated the base’s self destruct sequence. During this Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes Face off. Snake Eyes stabs Storm Shadow and presumably kills him.

Rex then heals McCullen’s burned face with nano-mites, encasing it in silver as he christens McCullen “Destro” and assumes the identity of Cobra Commander before they are captured by G.I. Joe soon after. On board the supercarrier USS Flagg, Baroness is placed in protective custody until they can remove the nano-mites from her body. Meanwhile, Zartan, having been earlier operated on by Rex, infiltrates the White House during the missile crisis and assumes the identity of the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce).

I especially liked the effects and the story.  I’m sure it will be in movie theatres for a long time to come. 

Although the movie is great;  I was disappointed on how they change the Snake Eyes’ history.  In the comic books Snake Eyes Doesn’t speak because of an accident which left him disfigured and mute.  In the movie he simply took a bow of silence.  I don’t know why Larry Hama allowed this.  I guess we will never know. 

I still can’t wait for the sequel though…..

A Filipino….Housewife….President…and Legend

President Maria Corazon "Cory" Cojuangco Aquino 1933–2009

A world-renowned advocate of democracy, peace, women’s empowerment, and religious piety.  We all know her simply as Cory Aquino.  The 11th president of the Philippines.  The Filipinos have a lot to thank her for.  Not only for her example of piety, but also for helping to remove the dictator Marcos from power.  I said it once and I will say it again.  If not for Cory, then Marcos or anyone of his cohorts will still be in power and the Philippines will still be under their mercy.

She started as a house wife to the late Great Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino.  She was convinced into running for president of the country three years after the senator was assasinated on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport (now known as Ninoy Aquino International Airport).  A world that she herself does not fully understand.  After the elections of 1986 and where the world witness the flee of the Marcos family.  She has become Her Excellency Corazon C. Aquino;  President of the Philippines.

The first female president of the Philippines and of Asia.  Although her administration was almost always challenged by multiple  coup attempts.  She stood her ground and did her job inspired by the very people who voted for her.  Acclaim as an icon of democracy she was Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1996, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Her speech before the joint session of the United States Congress was interrupted several times by applause and complimented by then Speaker of the House Tip O’ Neil as “the finest speech I’ve ever heard in my 34 years in Congress.”

Her term was also met with natural disasters;  The 1990 Luzon earthquake and the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 to name a few were one of the worst in Philippine history.  But she still held on, inspiring Filipinos not to give up.

After her term she returned to private life.  I still remember seeing her on television riding her own car after the inauguration of President Fidel V. Ramos instead of the government owned vehicle to symbolize her return to being a private citizen.

Although no longer the president most people turned to her still for inspiration and hope.  We never failed to see her during a crisis.  Always there like a mother to her child.

We owe her so much, and she never asked anything in return.  Now it’s our turn to pay her back,  by praying for her soul and hope that she is happy now that she is at peace.

Thank you Mrs. President……. May you rest in peace.

Patience!

If you read my post a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that patience is one of the things one needed to be a good call center agent.  It is also one of the hardest virtue to achieve and practice.

There are times that I even lose it to a customer.  I know that it can cost me my job, but there are times that you really can’t keep being patient all the time.

Last night I got a call from an Asian couple.  Who can’t connect to the Internet.  I was having a hard time understanding the woman, when her husband grabbed the phone and start talking to me in a very heavily accented English.  I tried my best to understand him, but because of his constant yelling and all I wasn’t able to understand what the hell is he trying to say.  Fortunately the call lasted for almost 45 minutes.  So any chance of that being listened to by the quality department is very slim.

Then last night I talked to a very old man.  He only wants to know the web address of the a certain website.  It took the call 30 minutes because he can’t spell “webmail” right.  I was so sad hearing the old man spell a very simple word incorrectly several times. 

I know I should try my best to be more patient,  but sometimes……….

I envy those agents who doesn’t lose their patience no matter what.  Kudos to them!

And for those agents like me who needed more patience on the job….. Practice.  Maybe if we put ourselves in the customer’s shoes, think that might help?

A New Schedule For July

Four weeks has gone by and it’s time to move to a different schedule again.  This one has a little bit of sadness on it, because it will affect my relationship with my wife (somewhat)   . 

24/7 Customer Philippines Inc.  the company that I work for has a policy of rotating the schedules for each production employees.  That means every four weeks we change are schedules and rest days.

This time my schedule will start between 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM that will last for 9 hours with a rest day of Mondays and Sundays;  Of course it will end after four weeks.  Although the night differential will be a substantial addition to my salary, it still doesn’t compensate the time away from my family.  Specially this new schedule that will allow me to see my wife during the weekends ONLY. 

Why?

Because I have to leave the house at around 7 PM every night to make sure that I don’t get late.  My wife normally arrives home around 8 to 8:30 PM.  But still that’s life.    Better to make a few sacrifices to ensure my family’s future, right?  

Still it would be better to get a better schedule to will allow me to see my wife everyday.

QA, CSAT and Stats

I was in a jeepney once, when I heard a woman told her companion. “Si Jonathan ang swerte, nasa call center.  Madali na ang trabaho, malaki pa kita.”( Jonathan is so lucky, he works in a call center, he earns a good salary and the work is not that hard).  I almost laugh at what she said.  Clearly these people doesn’t know what does being a call center agent is all about.

It’s not all that easy, but if you know what your supposed to do, then you’ll survive to have a career.  But there’s a little thing called stress, that can really get to you, specially to us call center agents.

It’s not just taking calls all nigh (or day), 1 phone call to be considered a good call has to follow certain parameters:

The Opening Spiel – You have to say the opening spiel, as perky and as lively as you can. ( Thank you for calling Jollibee, how can I help you today?)  You have to have a “voice with a smile”.(what ever that is….)

The Investigation – as a technical support representative; I have to know what the cause of the problem is for me to be able to fix the problem.  I have to ask the right questions, otherwise I won’t solve the problem as quickly as possible.

The Resolution – Let’s say you ask the correct questions, then you’ll know the cause of the problem.  So the next thing to do is solve it.  You have to follow a standard procedure in solving the problem.  You just can’t tell the customer to do this and that, you have to do it step-by-step.  You have to do it logically, otherwise you may have solve the problem now, but it will return in a few days.  One call resolution is the key.

The closing spiel – So let’s say you resolve the issue, what now?  You just can’t hang-up on the customer, you have to close the call properly. (Thank you for call Jollibee, have a great day!)

Sounds easy right?  Wrong!  There’s more to it, assuming you follow the guidelines above, then the next thing to do is wait.  That call will be graded by QA agents (Quality Assurance agents).  They are the people who listen to the calls and evaluate them.  They will determine if you really did follow the guidelines above. Apart from that they will evaluate the tone of your voice, do you sound boring? angry? impatient?  As I said there’s more to it, than just saying “hello”.

Now let’s say you passed the QA, what’s next?  CSAT or Customer Satisfaction Survey.  Even if you passed the QA, the CSAT in my opinion is the most important of all.  You will be graded by the customer.  He or she will determine, your work is satisfactory, did the problem return?  It’s always a teeth-chattering experience for me, while I wait for the results return the next day.

Some companies rely on QA to keep an agent employed, while there are others who takes CSAT, and then there are some who requires their agents to have a balance of both. 

But here’s the thing, you can control your call to have a good evaluation from QA, but you can never control CSAT.  I remember I had a customer that was so happy of the job that I did for him.  QA’s in the bag!  But when my CSAT returned, I failed.  Not becausethe customer is not happy with my work, but because he doesn’t like the problem, returning over and over again.  CSAT’s can go either way.  It’s just a matter of luck sometimes.

Apart from QA and CSAT there’s AHT or Average Handling Time.  That means, you can’t waste your day, in just  one phone call.  You have to finish the call in a prescribed duration.  That means you have to finish the call in an average of minutes.  In my case it’s 13 minutes or lower.  There are some who have 10  minutes, and I there are agents who are required to have a 2 minute handling time each day.  Of course that’s not always the case.  So one has to control the call.  Make sure you actually know what your telling the customer so that things will run smoothly Logical trouble shooting is the key.

There are many more things needed to be a successful Call center agent.  The one I describe above are the ones needed to have a good call.  There are other things, that you need to stay in the job.  Those are productivity, the length of time you stay on the phones in a day.  Absenteeism – do you always report for work, or do you call in sick every time.  Then there’s tardiness, you report for work, but are you on time?  There’s also over breaks,  you have 2 15 minute breaks and 1 60 minute break.  Do you return to the phones in time?  And of course Adherence, so you follow your schedule as strictly as possible?

I told you there’s more to it, than just taking calls, apart from above there is also the danger of going to work in un-Godly hours.  Some agents can’t handle it and gets sick.  So you must also be healthy to handle the pressure and work time.

Hope this can help aspiring agents out there.  Remember, preparation is the best way to have a successful career, whether in a call center or not.

24/7 Movie Day! Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Last Thursday June 25, 2009.  24/7 Customer Philippines Inc. Treated their hardworking employees to the movies.  Of course (as the title of this post implied) the movie was “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen“ 

Once again I marveled about the technology of today’s movie industry.  You would really think that the Autobots are actually alive and interacting with the human actors.  The plot is great, the effects amazing.  The actors are good specially that hot dame called Megan Fox.

The story is 2 years after the first movie.  The Autobots are now working  along side the humans to hunt down the Decepticons hinding on Earth.  I once heard a rumor that if you watch the animated Transformers: The Movie you’ll get the whole plot.  Curious of this I watched  it prior to watching the live-action sequel.  Rumors will always stay true to it’s name.  If not for the death of Optimus Prime the live-action movie’s plot is very different from the animated one.   I immesely enjoyed the return of John Turturro as Agent Simmons, (ex-agent;  I mean).  He provided comic relief beyond measure.

For Transformer fans they will enjoy to see their old favorites in this movie that wasn’t included in the first.  Soundwave, Ravage and the Constructicons (wich combined to form Devastator) was there for the Decepticons.  While Arcee, Wheelie, Jetfire and sideswipe are there for the Autobots.

I can’t wait to see the second sequel, rumor has it, it’s scheduled for 2011.