Monday was all about the initial tours and intros. We had some break-the-ice sessions including a good hour or so playing a bowling game on Ninetendo Wii. Tuesday and Wednesday were mainly HR stuff and corporate mission statements and all that jazz. Thursday and Friday were more hands-on with an intro to some of our systems, call flow, listening to recorded calls and live shoulder-to-shoulder shadowing...the usual stuff.Since the call management systems are much more sophisticated than the Apropos system used at Symantec, this will not be a job I can shirk calls on, but for all intents and purposes the calls seem quite simple compared to the level of complexity I had to deal with both at Symantec and Convergys. Being tech support, we don't resolve all issues, just voicemail. So, like the tech support team that shared our floor at Symantec, it's mainly simple troubleshooting then filling out a trouble ticket and it's out of hand from there. Nice thing is, at Symantec, the GCSS (first-line tech support) reps salary was mediocre which is why I never even considered transferring to that department when I was laid-off, but this place pays much better for essentially the same simple task.
I've yet to meet the full team, but here are some of the folks I do know:
Denise: A fellow new hire trainee, she has a bit of call center experience ranging from the boiler room atmosphere of Chase (across the street from Symantec in Heathrow) to some small office where she was hired to be a "Marketing Assistant" executive position but asked by the owners to help build the newly-formed business by being a jack-of-all-trades including customer service. Turns out, it really was almost all customer service. It was at this job she devised the idea of tossing a stuffed plush chicken doll over her cubicle wall to express frustration with a caller. Denise seems sweet and friendly (almost to an overly sensitive and empathetic level) but I sense a bit of entitlement due to her age (late 40's) and experience. Also, she seems to be an avid Christian who loves her weekend work at her church programming computer-coordinated lighting for faith-themed stage presentations.
Brittany: A Central Florida newcomer, she is here starting her first "real" job while living with her aunt who needs assistance after a recent illness. Having only restaurant and fast-food experience, she is a total deer-in-the-headlights 19-year-old experiencing a full-time job for the first time. Yet despite her lack of experience, she seems to be holding her own in training, she hardly takes notes but remembers most of the lessons taught by our trainer. Time will only tell whether this will be a good fit for her. Call center work can be stifling for any age category but for an active and energetic 19-year-old, it can seem like a life-sucking prison.
Jodi: Our trainer is a 50-year-old single mom (albeit her daughter is herself a young adult) who looks as if she's seen a lot over the years. Though she looks younger than her age, I detect in her way and mannerisms, as well as her style, a certain familiarity with alcoholism, domestic violence, drugs and poverty and a subsequent recovery from those issues with a Born Again zealotry. She's spoken about her brother, a glazier, who recently had the tip of his nose severed off by shattering glass, her former management of a "sober house", her love of volunteerism, her seemingly uncharacteristic nonchalant attitude about viewing pirated movies from torrent sites (ie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (just released in theaters last week)) which either exposes a lingering "devil-may-care" attitude or simply "ignorance-is-bliss" viewpoint of the moral issues of online piracy.
I'll report on others as I get to know them more. Overall, everyone seems quite friendly. Not the "corporate fake-smile plasti-friendly" of Symantec, but more a "welcome, new member, to our Moonie-cult" friendly.
So over the next few weeks while I continue to go through indoctrination, err, I mean training, if I start posting statements like: "The Company is God, All Hail The Company!", or "We are nothing without our Beloved Company, Glory Be To The Company!", you'll know I drank the Kool-Aid.