Burnout (musings of a former call center rep)

I'm not growing up I'm just burning out
and I stepped in line to walk amongst the dead.
- Green Day


Let’s see: Wake up. Bum around in bed hoping desperately to stop the clock knowing full well you can’t. Set the alarm for 15 minutes more. Maybe even skip breakfast (or in this case dinner) for a few more minutes of decent sleep. The alarm goes off and another debate goes inside your head on whether you’d go to work or not. You figured well what the hell, “health is wealth”. Forget the money and go back to sleep for a healthier existence. Working at night is bad for the health anyway. Circadian rhythm’s gonna go haywire. Pat yourself in the back afterwards for a job well done. It’s only temporary. Tomorrow the motivation will be there. Just not today, si?


I wonder how many people in this country go through with that kind of conundrum everyday. The dreadful sensation of anticipating the same routine, spiels, reactions to the same stupid inquiries and queries over and over until one feels like one of those assembly-line robots that are frequently seen or read about in cheesy scifi movies and stories. I’m talking about being a call center rep. Since this industry started during the early part of this century, it practically saved millions of fresh graduates from the hassle of unemployment and bumming around. It’s practically the new nursing. Parents, now more than ever, encourage their kids to polish their oral English proficiency skills with hopes that they land that high-paying job. Schools even give preparatory courses for the thing and every classified ad section in the papers are filled to the brim with full page spreads of the biggest companies promising competitive packages and “fun, creative workplaces for the smart and adventurous” youth of today.

First gig

I started in the call center business in January 2003. Back then, people didn’t have much of an idea as to what type of work it was. The graveyard shift was still commonly associated with more familiar nocturnal activities like prostitution and drug pushing. When friends asked me what kind of job I was currently stuck in, and I told them I was a CCA (meaning call center agent), they would immediately assume I work in a telecommunications corporation like PLDT or BayanTel. It’s not entirely an off-tangent assumption; call centers utilize telephone lines as the backbone of the business after all. But that’s as far as the similarities are concerned. You're practically a salesman, front desk information/customer care personnel, computer technician, salesman, and did I mention salesman? The only difference is you're sitting in an office and you deal with clients oceans away from you. That, and the pay is relatively larger than average 9-5 day jobs. It that come-on doesn't attract aspiring job-seekers then the Pope isn't Catholic. 


I remember earning much as 35K a month in commissions from my first call center gig back in 2003 peddling online advertising slots for small businesses in the USA. I know it sounds pretty far-off and even appetizing considering the type of monetary gain you'd reap that you won't find in any other day jobs but the daily stress that went with it can't even be approximated by even most people working the same business nowadays. The first reason is because most call center reps have the benefit of having the rudimentary knowledge of how the business works because it's already common and being mentored by people who are real veterans in the business. And secondly because telemarketing isn't a popular outsourced service as customer care or tech support. And I had my first taste of the call center industry via telemarketing. Or as it is more commonly known, an  outbound account. They don't call you. You call them. And Westerners are notoriously unlike Filipinos in accommodating total strangers who would like to have a slice of their valuable time. Specially pesky salespeople like myself.

Second gig

I remembered the training class I underwent when I was still a newly hired employee for the second call center company I worked for---this time it was a customer care account; inbound so to speak, so I figured it was a walk in the park . But the pay is relatively smaller. Fine by me. With the kind of nickname like "Boiler Room" attributed to the production area of the first company I worked for and the early symptoms of ulcer and insomnia starting to kick in, I figured a big paycheck can't be taken to an early grave anyway. And I have had enough of those Southern rednecks threatening to blow my head off if I call them again and wasted their precious time after they made it very clear that "I AM NOT FUCKIN' INTERESTED ON WHAT YOU ASSHOLES ARE SELLIN'! EVEN IF IT WERE THE GOOD LORD'S TESTICLES SO HELP ME GAWD AH'LL SHOOT YA!!!"


And my batch mates---mostly fresh grads who had no prior experience in the business were wearing expressions in heir faces like they were cattle about to be slaughtered. Typical anxiety talk about when the "LIVE" calls would commence; on how they'd screw up when they started to engage a real American in conversation, things like that. Thank God for the kind of experience I had in the first company. Everything was a walk in the park with the second one. Inbound is gay. 


And then I quit the moment I was regularized for the position. Location, more than the nature of the work. I hated the business center the office was located in.


Slang is nothing. Guts is everything.

Aqua sea foam shame

Random conversations overheard from Wynsum Corporate Center to the MRT North station:


"...Poooota paaar-rre (coñotic rolling of the "R")...I heard Cueshe's gonna perform again dito next week...astig parr-re..."

"...Nakakainis talaga si Uma. Gwapo sana pero bading pala...bakit pumatol kaya sya ke Cass no? Bisexual yun. May tito akong ganun din...Kala mo ang macho..."


"...Bad trip nga amputangina! Ampangit na nga ang sagwa pa ng ugali! Ba't ba naging bisor yun? Makapag resign na nga! putangina talaga...!"


"...Hindi talaga ako ma-relo. Yung swatch ko nga binili ko nung Christmas pero nung New Year ayun...Nabaon na sa aparador di ko na sinuot..."


"...Kamusta yung panliligaw ni Vince? E langya, dinadaan kasi sa kapreskuhan e...dapat pare, ang babae, kunwari di mo gusto para ikaw ang habulin..."
_____________________________________


an excerpt from a song by NIRVANA:

I WISH I WAS LIKE YOU

EASILY AMUSED.

Rock the burak

Goddam neighbors think they're certified audio-f$#%$-philes.

I was roused from a very good night's sleep at around nine this morning by a very LOUD and steady thumping from next door. The idiots were playing Master P's "Rock It(?)" or "Rock The Boat(?)" . If there's any other hip-hop song in this world that would make me rather listen to Vanilla Ice or that moron from Linkin Park (it's goin' daewn!), I guess this crap with the rock the boat rock rock the boat rock-chorus that sounds "rakdaborakdaborakdaborak" would be the best reason. 

I'm gonna invest on a good speaker system so that the next time something like this happens again I'll retaliate with something from a Swedish black metal band. See if they like a dose of their own medicine. I have no problem with their musical preferences, but it is their cranking the volume to astronomical levels that violates other people's privacy is where i take offense.

It's bad enough that it's loud.

But Master P?

RAKDABORAKDABORAKDABORAK!!!!

Idiots.

Those Carrie Whites

I was ambushed by a sudden rainshower halfway from the office to the nearest train station on my way home from work. I headed to Megamall to kill time and to wait for the rain to subside. I usually loiter around bookstores. Nobody gives a damn whether you’re gonna buy something or not anyway. Unlike clothing shops where they have annoying personnel trailing you as if you’re a parolee up to no good. I was contemplating on opening the SWAMP THING graphic novel I’ve seen during my last visit, when I came upon the Stephen King section of the shop and found an opened copy (the plastic wrapper of the paperback was shoved unceremoniously between The Stand and Insomnia) of his first bestseller Carrie. I haven’t read the book but I saw Brian De Palma’s movie adaptation in Betamax back when I was in third grade.

I rented the video, of all places, in a squalid billiard hall that also moonlighted as a video rental store (carrying mostly x-rated flicks that starred 80s porn stars like Ginger Lynn, Traci Lords, and Seka) found in the center of the local flea market in our town. I just got a hair cut from my barber a few doors down when I passed by the place and saw the hall screening what looked to be a zombie movie (The Return Of The Living Dead, actually.) and found, to an 8-year old’s amusement and delight, the shelves by the TV stacked with hardcore, original copies of Beta and VHS tapes with titles like “Behind The Green Door”, “Oiled For Orgasms”, “The Ballbusters”, “Taboo”, and probably 20 other titles that are way too obvious even to a third grader. 


The clerk, an elderly woman eating a banana-cue regarded me with a menacing stare that is, again, another synopsis in belaboring the obvious. I knew even if I had a million bucks the clerk would even STOP TO THINK about letting me rent those. And I was far from being being a millionaire. I was a snotty-looking kid with only 20 bucks spare for a single video. I liked horror movies---and I still do---so I looked for anything that could fill in for the skin flick that I should’ve rented. It’s a good thing it’s all original copies; bless the seaman who owned the joint, at least you’d get a rudimentary idea on what the movie’s all about by reading the synopsis in the jacket. I saw Carrie. I Saw Sissy Spacek’s blood-soaked image at the back of the tape. I saw the name Stephen King. I forked the twenty and jumped the nearest tricycle back home.

The movie was, for the most part when I was watching it, just okay. But not scary in the “zombie-psycho slasher-aliens from outer space” type of scary. John Travolta was in it, and I hated him then because of his Saturday Night Fever dance number and the film looked outdated and so big a relic of the 70s---a decade that I really loathed---that I was a bit nauseus on some parts. But most of all I hated it because it reminded me so much of a classmate named Rio.

She transferred to our school during first grade (our class was together since kindergarten); and everybody was more than willing to alienate the new girl with a dumb look on her face. Stephen King described it as “bovine-like” and it’s true. Class freaks do have the expression of total submissiveness and apathy akin to that of cows about to be lead to the slaughterhouse. She was not pretty to start with, and kids at this age are brutally frank and cruel in expressing their dislike to a person who’s not likable at all. She was the butt of all jokes, even earned the moniker “Rio Kalbo” courtesy of the meanest duo ever to walk the grounds of WVSU Elementary School SEAFDEC Campus: Peter and Paul---the twin masters of disasters from 1st to 6th grade. The class bullies. Every student has had a taste of the two’s nastiness but Rio got the heaviest blows most of the time. 

And every time everybody’s ganging up on her I participated and razed her with extreme prejudice as well. There was something about her not being pleasant to look at and not acting like a normal girl does that just makes it feel extremely good to hate her---even if she did not do anything to you, much less look at your direction at all. After the heckling stops she’d just go back to her seat and take out a textbook and pretend to read while others resumed their everyday elementary business. That was the only reprieve she had. Once or twice I caught her wiping her eyes like there was some irritant stuck in them and knew she was crying. The entire class and I enjoyed seeing her suffer. This went on for six years. I can only imagine how ecstatic she probably was when we graduated. I don’t know. I didn’t notice. I was too busy with myself to even notice she was there.

I didn’t think about her again until I read the foreword to the book just a few hours ago. It’s about Stephen King’s personal experience with the “Carrie Whites” in his school and I realized how very close they were to my own.

Feeling bad about it won’t change a thing.

I wonder how those twins are holding up?

Ready to crash and burn I never learn

I miss the sound of Guns N Roses. 

Especially hearing it on the radio. Gone were the days when, upon tuning in to NU107, the unmistakable sound of Slash’s leadguitars gliding like high-tension wires over the solid grooves provided by Duff, Izzy, and Steven would flood your room and consciousness like a welcome intruder. I think the factors that contributed to GNR’s success were the very same reasons that actually destroyed the band. 

In my opinion, there are two schools of thought within the confines of rock music: the traditional blues-rooted guitar-hero/virtuoso camp whose biggest disciples and pioneers include Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Black Sabbath, and Clapton; and the concept album/lyrical imagery/experimental camp that boasts the stellar line-up of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, and Bob Dylan (I didn’t include the punk movement, which was all about attitude and not about technical or musical proficiency.). Hendrix et. al. weren’t famous because they wrote lyrics that would rival that of say, TS Eliot's poetry,the same way John Lennon was not famous for his killer guitar histrionics. 

Those who belong to the guitar hero camp were superb and consumate performers who used the guitar as means of letting their most primal andburied passions out. While Hendrix et. al. used the guitar as the main attraction in any performance or song, Lennon et. al. used it as a tool to shade and color a song in sync with the other instruments, rather than let it jump out of the speaker. However, it does not mean that the guitar heroes/visionaries were lesser, in an artistic point of view, to the rock-poets. It simply means that they have their own unique way of expressing themselves: their fingers do the actual talking instead of the words themselves. 

Appetite For Destruction, original Robert Williams cover art

Although this may sound a bit sacriligeous to some, Guns N’ Roses managed to somehow balance the elements of both camps, even including the nastiness of punk. Who other cock-rock-hair band besides GNR would you still listen to nowadays without the fear of being ridiculed? Poison? Warrant? Motley Crue? Axl Rose’s predisposition to being experimental and progressive was somehow balanced by Slash’s more traditional blues and rock n’ roll values. The Use Your Illusion series were, in a way, flavored by Axl’s newfound interest in Trent Reznor’s music. I mean some of the more memorable tracks in those albums were laced with synthesizers and keyboard effects(“November Rain”, “Estranged”, “Don’t Cry”, “Live and Let Die”, etc.,) that, in turn, were matched by Slash’s stellar guitar works like in“November..” and “Estranged.” Add to that unique concoction controversial and provocative song lyrics that were a far-cry to the ridiculousness of the hair-metal era that spawned them, and you have the right ingredient for success. That is why even today, listening to GNR’s albums, they still sound fresh and exciting compared to the one-dimensional scope of rap-metal/punk-pop that seem to have taken over the word “commercialism” without any effort at all. 

As for the band’s demise, fans were already veering toward the likes of Nirvana and the rest of the alternative posse by the time they released that train wreck called The Spaghetti Incident? anyway. The interesting part is that those different points of view that buoyed the band to achieve mainstream success were the very reasons that dragged them down in the end. I always believed Axl Rose was a gifted songwriter, especially when working with his former bandmates, but he tends to overindulge when left alone by himself. And in my opinion, had there been compromises in both camps, the next GNR album would be even bigger than Appetite For Destruction, Lies, or the Illusion albums. Or any other albums.

Ortigas station

If you take the MRT and go down the Ortigas station right beside SM Mega A between 9am-5pm, you'd find people utilizing assorted methods of collecting alms. There's the old woman at the bottom of the stairs of the overpass connecting the South and North-bound stations; sometimes I wonder if she knows me considering i always pass by her post practically everyday. Just ahead her post, located right in the middle of the overpass are the slightly more opulent blind musicians. compared to the beggarly appearance of the old woman, the musicians look more moneyed and well-nourished. They should be, considering the equipment they're using aren't worth peanuts in the first place. They do covers of Rey Valera, Air Supply, Freddie Aguilar, and all other music acts that achieved musical stardom before the first People Power Revolution. After their post, going down the stairs towards POVEDA and Robinson's Galleria is the mother and daughter team. when I first saw them several months ago as I started on my current job I had an overwhelming urge to stop and ask what's wrong with the girl.

The girl is probably between 8-10 years old, and had healthy-looking frame far better than the emaciated looks most of the poverty-stricken kids here suffer from. The mother looks like she's 45 but I suspect she's a lot younger than that. Her daughter has half her face swallowed by a huge lump that looked too much like a tumorous growth to an average person without any medical background. Just looking at her made my entire face ache as if I had it myself. I was walking relatively fast but the first time I passed them time slowed to a torturous slowness and stop-motion clarity.

I stopped to stare. It wasn't a few seconds but I know they noticed. They stared back pleading. I passed by them accelerating my pace; I never felt fear and pity so potently mixed into a tasteless brew that ate you up so fast. One can get used to it. I should know. I pass by them everyday.

Callousness is the word of the day.