The Rest of The Story

An era ended for me on May 9. On that day, I ascended from the wretched bowels of Citi Commerce Solutions. On that date, exactly one week before my sixth anniversary with the company, the company where I had been employed for nearly a forth of my quarter-century life, I walked out. And I honestly did so without any hesitation or second thought. I knew that this was best for me.

Here’s how it went down. Oh, and none of this is exaggerated to give you a true sense of its ridiculousness. Now the majority of you guys have worked in call centers or at least know the gist of them, so I don’t think I’ll have to explain the monitoring procedure too much.

All this crap started the beginning of April. My “supervisor” had called me over on April 1 and advised me that my quality average would have to be above 70% average for the month, otherwise I would have to write a “commitment letter.” This letter would basically say that I want to stay with the company and that if I slip up once, that I’ll willing resign my position. Now all this shit makes me sound like I’m a terrible fucking employee, and I’m not. I’ve never had problems with attendance. I’ve never had problems with tardiness. I go in, do my job, and leave. All this shit was because I did follow the “GLAD” call model to a T. On a side note, I love the stupid-ass jargon phrases companies use for things. It sounds so childish. Anyway, I said “No problem, boss. I got 70%.”

And I did. That is, up until April 30. I checked my monitors for the month, confident that I had met my requirement without any conundrum. My average for the month as of April 29 was a 76%. That was out of eight calls. See, in the department I was in, they monitor 10 calls per month. Well, once the screen that allows us to check our monitors had loaded, and I viewed my new average, the tirade began. It was now a 68% average. The two new calls that had been added to my total for the month were scored 95% and 0%. So I checked the 0% call to read its notes, as they are noted to let us know what we fucked up on, but never tell us what we did well.

I was pissed, to say the least. It was a call for a customer named Thomas Gomez. The note said “CSR asked for the name on account instead of whom they were speaking with.” That’s it. However, this is what I had done on every call since I had been in the department. NEVER was it scored a 0%.

April 30 was on a Saturday, so I immediately stormed over to one of the weekend supervisors and said “I wish to file a dispute on one of the calls I just got scored on. I know I’m getting screwed on it and I want to hear it.” He said “Well, Blob (I’m going to refer to the rotund asshole as “Blob” or my “supervisor” for the remainder of the post) comes in later, so I’ll let him know and he can help you dispute it.”

I was fine with that. So, at 3:30 he came in. He hadn’t mentioned anything to me or said anything to me all day, so at about 6:45, I went over and said “I want to hear this call. If it’s getting a zero for the reason I think it is, then it should be overturned.” He said “We’ll listen to it later.”

Well, at 7 he announces he’s going to Olive Garden. I signed off at 8 that night, and he hadn’t returned, so I went home still pissed off. The next day, my “supervisor” wasn’t in, so I once again went to one the weekend supervisors to dispute the call. Once again, it was to no avail.

On May 3, my “supervisor” called me over to his desk at 7:45. He already had my stats for the month of April pulled up. He points at the 68% quality average and this smug little shit-eating smirk runs across his face. Once I saw that, I snapped like Clint locked in a room with a bunch of Frisbee-thieving children. Before he could say a damn word, I said “I told you Saturday, and I’m telling you again that I want to dispute that last call, the one scored a zero.” He said “Okay, we’ll listen to it right now.”

So here’s how the call went: “Thanks for calling Home Depot Credit. This is Brad. How can I help you?” The customer gives me his account number. Then I say “Can I get the name on the account?”

My “supervisor” cuts the call off and says “See, you didn’t do proper name verification.” In a condescending tone, I replied “Blob, that’s the same opening I’ve used on every call since I’ve been in this department, and not ONCE has it been given a zero.”

Now Blob told us once that he himself goes back and listens to all the calls that the quality department scores us on, I guess to ensure that they didn’t make any errors in their grading. What this means is that he has never given me a zero for this call opening either.

So he says “Ok, we’ll listen to another call.” And we did. EXACT same call opening. One difference, though….this call scored an 85%. So I said “Ya see! It’s the same opening and it wasn’t counted off. It’s the same opening I’ve used on every call.” Blob then says, very smugly, “Oh, well we’ll just have to go back and change this one to a zero.”

I was irate. “You can’t do that!” I replied. “But what you can do, and what you are going to do is overturn the score on this call. If it’s not the same on every call, then it’s not fair.”

His reply: “Well, we’ll file the dispute for you and see if we can get it overturned, but it’s not gonna do you any good. You’re still going to have to write your commitment letter.” His smug grin was once again in tow. I said “I’ll be checking with Barbara (Blob’s boss) to make sure the dispute was filed.”

Well, for once, Blob actually did what he said he was going to do. He had a talk with Barbara on May 6 (of course, ‘ol Ima was off that day, so I wasn’t part of the meeting). On May 7, I got called into Barbara’s office at 3:30. She said “You didn’t meet the quality average goal for the month. At this point, we are going to ask that you go home and write the commitment letter.” I then brought up the call that was scored a zero. If it had been overturned, I would’ve met my goal for the month.

I asked “Is my call going to be overturned?” Barbara said “Well, we listened to all your calls for the month, and you had two compliance failures (basically these are failures to verify, such as what I had apparently done on the call that started this shit). She continued: “Now we admit that the reason your other calls were not scored zeros is because of an error in our quality calibration process.” I said “Then there have been lots of errors. I’ve used that opening on every call.” I then asked “Is it arrogant of me to think that an error in YOUR process should go in my favor?”

She, of course, had no reply.

Babs continued: “We are meeting with the quality department to rectify this, so that such errors do not continue in the future. However, we are not overturning your call at this time, as it was a compliance failure. Now we ask that you go home at this time and return on Monday at 3 p.m. for a meeting with Cindy (another Unit Manager like Barbara) with the commitment letter ready.”

I left at 4 that day, with a smile on my face. They were paying me for a weekend off. It was nice outside, too. Damn, ‘ol Ima had to go throw some discs! See, I knew good and well I wasn’t writing that fucking stupid letter.

About 6 o’ clock that day, I went to Warrior’s to play Frisbee golf. I got my tenth career ace on Hole 19. I swore that I could retire from Frisbee golf once I got 10 aces and be content with my disc golf career. I took it as a sign.

So, on Monday, I went into Cindy’s office. She seemed very cordial, a total 180 of prior treatment I had received. Anyway, I get in the office and she says “Now Barbara sent you home Saturday to write your commitment letter. Do you have that ready?”

I don’t think she was ready for my response…

“I’m going to be honest with ya. I didn’t write a word all weekend. I didn’t even start on it.”

Her jaw hit the floor. She said “But you were sent home to write a commitment letter. You had all weekend to do so and came back with nothing.”

I said “Yeah. But a commitment letter would mean that I want to stay with the company. That’s contradictory to what I want to do. Actually, I think it’s in my best interest if I resign now. I don’t want to stay here any longer and would actually like to make this my two-week notice.”

She said “That’s an interesting approach. No one’s ever done this before in this department.” Hell, I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Really, I didn’t give a shit.

She proceeded: “We actually would like to accept your resignation now. You’re a liability on the phones since you had three compliance failures in April.”

“Oh, it’s up to three now?” I asked in a smart-assed tone. “That’s fine.”

So, they took my Citi badge, and escorted me out of the building. Then, they left me on the sidewalk like a bag of trash. I smiled. 3:30 was the earliest I’d ever gotten off work.

I stopped into Food City where homegirl Amber was working. I told her of the debacle. Of course, I had to ask if Food City was hiring. I was now unemployed.

I had some cash on me, so I then went to O’ Charley’s to celebrate what I considered a victory. I got there about 4 and began drinking. A lot. About 5:30 I ran out of currency, so I had to leave. However, I couldn’t go home blitzed like I was, so I drove out to Borden Park to play Frisbee golf and hopefully work off the wicked buzz. I shot a very respectable -7. Now I know how David Wells must’ve felt after his perfect game a few years ago. The drunkenness was receding, but I still couldn’t go home yet. So I went to my grandparents and told them the story.

About 8:30, I went home and went to bed.

That Tuesday, I began applying for jobs. The majority of job applications are now taken online. For the hell of it, I applied online for the Walgreen’s in Colonial Heights, as their sign said they were hiring.

Unemployment didn’t last long. Walgreen’s called at 4 the next day. The manager said “Now I know we weren’t your preferred locations on your application, but we need help here.” I hadn’t checked the caller ID to see the number that she was calling from; I had just noticed it was a call from Walgreen’s. So I asked “Where are you guys located?”

It was the North Roan Street location in Johnson City...one helluva drive for my lazy ass. However, I figured it would be a good job to work since I had planned on going back to school and Citi was no longer willing to work with school schedules like they used to.

I started that Friday (May 13). I watched seven hours of hideously boring training videos. However, they were immediately flexible with my schedule. They allowed me to have the weekend off for homegirl Erin’s wedding (oh, and I lost the “date” challenge proposed by the homegirls, proving once and for all that the pimp hand is non-existent…unless you count my mom as a date).

I must say that even though I took a massive pay cut, I really enjoy working with the tangible public again. Despite the tone of this post, I’m not bitter. This is the most content I’ve been in years.

I can see the customer. I can walk them through the store and point them in the right direction to find items. They’re no longer just a voice in my left ear. The best part about Walgreen’s to this point is that there has been absolutely, positively NO bullshit. Plus, I actually get commended for a job well done. That goes a long way for me. Rarely did I receive that during my stint in hel, er, Citi. Oh, and I'm the best-looking male cashier in the place! (you guessed it, there's only one...)

My only complaint about the job to this point is listening to the elderly bitch about coupons. Oh, and the vest I have to wear. Oh, and getting up super early. Oh, and easy listening music playing for eight straight hours. But I just gotta remember: “Life’s not perfect….that’s why there’s Walgreen’s.” Now I know it’s not an occupation that’s gonna set the world on fire, but it has helped me decide that I’ll never work in another call center.

So, thank you for calling Home Depot Credit Services, Thomas Gomez, wherever you are….