Memoirs of a Call Girl
I had a hard time explaining to the parental units how my job works. The mother staunchly believed she has watched one too many episodes of telenovelas to be duped by yours truly.
“If you think you could pass this romantic rendezvous with your beau off for some graveyard shift, then you’ve run out of alibis young lady.”
Two freshly photocopied work schedules affixed with a seemingly credible signature finally produced a nod of approval to my first away-from-home experience at an ungodly hour without my protective brother breathing down my neck.
We all had to make adjustments. Even my friends. When we converged forces at a bar known to serve coffee at a 300% marked up price one summer later after graduation, we all knew we had to ask one inevitable question: “So where are you working?” When it was my turn, I feigned choking on my blueberry cake. After I had recovered from my self-induced coughing fit, I finally blurted out “call girl,” then guffawed, beating them to the joke. But nobody reacted for approximately 10 seconds. I swear I heard leaves rustle from a few feet away in the silence that followed. Some light bulbs finally turned on a few seconds later though and after some puns about “responding to one’s true calling,” I managed to silence them with this succinct comeback: “if money could talk, my wallet would never have laryngitis.”
Guiness Book of Records should add call center agents as one of the most misunderstood employees of the world.
While the whole Philippines sleeps, we’re made to choose between the harshness of the computer screen monitor and the softness of our bed. What could be more torture than that? And barring civil rights, sups would have long harassed hapless eReps to always—if possible—maintain a balancing act, like a newbie on a trampoline line, with our metrics (the deadly QA, the annoying AHT, the unbearable CSAT). Just goes to show that we are at the mercy of our customers.
I’d also like to stake an honest claim: never in my life have I drunk a cup of caffeine ‘til now. And for every single gulp, I’m drinking in another world, another culture, another ennui… intoxicated.
I’ve been vertically-challenged since birth, but I’ve never felt the need to shed a few pounds thanks to good genes. But only half a year after my college graduation, I’m still 21 but my waistline suggests an older age. I’ve been summoning my guts to lift weights and sweat like a pig so I can remove the unwanted flabs and work on the occasional heartburns.
And as if these are not enough, we have to deal with customers who think we owe them maximum tolerance. Sounding so phony on the line, little do they know that we’ve been ranting expletives on the other end while pressing the mute button.
But if it’s any consolation, since I started working as a technical support agent in a call center, I have rebuilt my speech encyclopedia with a totally different accent, upgrading it from 5.0 to 6.1. I’ve been mentally listing computer-techy defenses, too. “Oh, that’s just a glitch in the computer memory.” Another is: “That? You’re missing a tcp/ip protocol in the computer. That’s an operating system issue already.” And I can flaunt in an ultra-mod style without colleagues reprimanding me for wearing a bare, vixen-like office attire. Needless to say, an MTV generation. And if that doesn’t help, fringe benefits include being protected from the sweltering heat of the sun and in effect, gaining a “visibly lighter skin” without the expensive aid of cosmetics or papaya soap.
For all it’s worth, I guess I’m going to stay here a little bit longer.
As a parting shot, there are two things that people outside from our world usually ask and I have formulated a spiel for that. For question number 1: “What’s it like in a call center?” My response: “They can have their cake and eat it, too. Question number two: “What are Americans on the phone like?” I say: “Simon from America idol meets Kris Aquino.”
Comments