This song keeps on reverberating on my head plus the visual tremor that sticks on my head whenever I’m hearing this song and seeing its music video. Great timing because I wanted to post something in regards to the concept of the song.
This is only temporary
I’m not really in a hurry
A party on morning
Work all night
Get my money when the sun shines
lyrics from Call Center by Cambio
BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies boomed and they are now selling hotcakes to a lot of jobseekers out there. BPO’s did a great job to decrease the massive amount of unemployed here in the country. As they sprung like mushrooms across different cities, large numbers of jobseekers piled up just to get that position that can give them a tempting amount of salary. I bet that big amount of money are perfect for them because they also need money to regain their health.
To start with this post, I am not against the profession of call center representatives. Their job requires great patience and a lot of good sleep during daytime—which is typically hard to do under a dysfunctional weather of a tropical country. It’s not easy to get psyched out from dumb question of stupid impatient clients. I do know what a CSR (Call Center Representative) overcome at work because I also have friends working in that industry. I must say, talking to their clients is guaranteed to make an agent get a horrible brain damage afterwards.
I’m just disappointed for some students who graduated from college that will only sort to becoming a CSR afterwards. They studied and extracted their juices to produce a competitive thesis but all those hardships will just end up dealing with a client’s dilemma of having a PC powered on. They spent their parents’—or maybe their own—income to get through college. They surrendered their dream to answer phone calls after midnight.
Yes, they earn a lot but at the same time they are putting risk to their body and mental health. Is working in a call center really worth it? For some it is.
I have a friend working in a known call center in Makati. He’s working there for more than a year now and he’s now a trainer there. He graduated Political Science and I knew how he loved talking about politics. He wanted to study Law after finishing the said course, but now he couldn’t. He is currently the breadwinner of their family and he is supporting the studies of his younger brother in a known college that is also the current rival of his alma mater (clue: NCAA). The tuition is worth almost 50,000 pesos that’s why he can’t move out of the call center and pursue his dreams to become a lawyer as of now.
They are the people who deserves the benefit of call centers. For some, they don’t. Some of them have become assholes and pain in the ass of coffee shop personnel and customers. They boast their twanged english that disrupts the calm ambiance of a supposed to be relaxing environment. They thought that speaking in accented english over a venti cup of crapuccino can metamorphose their social status. They may have a large sum of salary and twanged foreign language, but that is not enough to make them an elite or smarter than anyone.
I have met elitists and some call center employee with a high-ranking position—like my friend—and they don’t act like assholes. My former bosses are elites and they talk to us in the native tongue. They are only talking in english when they are speaking to clients or societal friends. I am not against english-speakers who talk sensibly and genuinely good speakers; I hate posers.
They are easily identifiable too whenever they are in a customer-related establishments. Like in fastfood chains, they are usually the one who are demanding and whine a lot. I guess they adapted it from their whining clients too. Exercising their right is entirely good but they should minimize doing it in a fastfood chain or resto. One thing they should always put in mind, don’t mess up with the people handling your food. No one knows if you’re already eating the chef’s pubic hair.
Working—whether in BPO’s or not—should always be fun. There should be passion whatever the field of the work may be. Working is not always about the money and it’s not about getting to the top fast. So to all graduating students, fresh grads and jobseekers out there, always do the job you love. Not all are given the chance to work with their passion.
In The Brink of the Mental Warzone 
9 Comments
I came there, been there, been that (not the pa-coño part though) and I completely agree with what you wrote in here.
That’s why one of my advocacy right now is to tell my closest friends/relatives and those who wants to listen to follow what they want to do with their lives and to not stagnate themselves there. We shouldn’t be a receptacle of complains from annoying foreigners. Deal with their own concerns and let’s deal with ours.
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Good day! ^_^
Well billy, you nailed it out nicely, as if I was like reading my own essay about call center people and the stagnation of decade-long education (only a bit longer than this one, and was submitted late. hahaha).
Pero honestly, I’m having my options after graduation. I’m not yet sure about the career I’m gonna pursue. At dahil dun, being a call center agent became part of my yard-long list of jobs to apply for. (kasama na dun yung mag-hosto sa Japan after a 6-month long ‘gym’ming. Hehehehe. Ambisyoso.)
It’s funnier when they mix up the American with the British accents. I heard one who’s talking to a friend on his phone using American accent then suddenly he switched to British accent, and it’s not even appropriate to the context that it was used. Haha.
Lalon,
If they love dealing with terrible migraines and pneumonia, probably suggest CSR jobs to them.
Neil,
Stagnation of knowledge is one of the worst-case scenario of every professional can have. So better be a bar host in Japan, you can still show your hosting prowess.
Prudence,
That’ll be funnier if he’ll do an Indian accent. Hahaha.
Working is not always about the money and not all are given the chance to work with their passion
Yeah, so true. so true
What I’m disappointed is that, my friends just quit college to get CC jobs just to support the lavish lifestyle their parents don’t give them and to party harder. Talk about not ungrateful. Gah.
People who are forced to go into a particular job which they don’t really like and doesn’t fit with their degree they got in college are unlucky.
There may be a chance that they’ll be earning lots of dough but that doesn’t change the fact that people surrender their dream and just apply for a CC job. The time spent in college was thrown into the garbage bin.
Juice,
For a young age, they should also enjoy their earnings. What we should fear for them are the stagnation of their knowledge. The learnings from college must continue to grow at work too and not just to be stuck up there by only dealing with other problems.
Ian,
What’s more disappointing they are missing a lot in their day life and a fun night life as well—not a nightlife at work.
The blogger and his commenters do not know what they’re saying. And judging from the use of idioms, colloquialisms, grammatical construction and spelling, I doubt any of these guys would get hired in a call center.
Okay, you graduate from college, apply for an 8 to 5 job and earn P9,000 @ entry-level while the call center dudes are day-partying in their fresh condos. And when holidays are immediately before or after off days, the whole team gets a chance to fly to Hong Kong or Bangkok or Bali or..
C’mon you losers, pick up that phone and start practicing.