American Dream, Hold Please

Click. Clack. Click. Clack. My heels were timing my entrance into my longest lasting regret. Little did I know the same place that brought me freedom, imprisoned me while I was busy in the hamster wheel.

"Why do you want this job?" I was asked, and so I replied "Water is my passion. I've always drank [insert brand here] water; it has always been my favorite and so I would be a good fit because I care about what you are selling here."

We all do that, don't we? We choose a job that is supposed to be temporary and they overstay their welcome in your life and you start to miss out on family activities which is probably one of the reasons you got this job in the first place- to be able to afford a good time out with your family, or at least to be able to afford the essentials for you and yours.

We trade time for money and then eventually we end up being unhappy, at work and at home, and when one person is unhappy, it spreads like wild fire. Your pets would become stressed out, your kids, your spouse, your plants might die because of your stank attitude. Then we must also mention how we talk ourselves out of our own dreams to fulfill someone else's dream that truly doesn't give a rat's ass about you. Remember that you are 100% replaceable no matter how many 'great job's you get. No matter how many hours you work for them, no matter how many holidays you so graciously give up just to sit there and doodle on your phone or coloring book because guess what, NEWS FLASH- only the devil calls customer service on a holiday.

I was supposed to go in, get my money to open up my first massage therapy establishment. No funny business, no wasting time, if I was going to start my business it had to be then. I was going to do it all; raise my son, work for the water company, get that paper, and run my own business.

Who was I kidding? At 24, this place had a whole 'nother plan for me. It was like a damn novela. Say goodbye to Kasey's Royal Treatment. Hello to half a decade of "Hello and thank you for choosing Ready Refresh, my name is Kasey, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?", 5 to 6 days a week, 80- 100 times a day. The calls were supposed to be short. They were supposed to be a few minutes long and if you took too long a manager would walk by from the Queue Watch and see what is taking so long.

Excuse me ma'am- how about the fact that I am simply doing my job? I have to be polite, I cannot interrupt the customer, I cannot talk over the customer, I cannot react negatively if a customer is irate. I cannot take it personal if I answer with an accent and the person asks me to transfer them to an 'American'- BeeTeeDubs- I am fucking American. I am supposed to control the call flow without controlling the call. The most petty thing about customer service is that you have to please both parties. You have to be that middle ground where the customer and the owners of the company meet, and sometimes that middle ground can become really muddy.

There is so much that goes on behind the scenes of taking just one call, it is not as simple as just answering the phones, although, they sure do make it sound that easy. First, there is the work culture. Then there is the work itself, and climbing the work ladder, and then there is the entire stress of the call flow itself. Lastly, there remain the tiny leftovers of who you are.

I don't want to dig too deep into the whole work drama thing, that's another story for another day. What I will say is that, bosses take advantage of their positions at this place just like any other. If a co worker or manager invites you out for pizza, you're not actually getting pizza. If you hear whispers behind your back and they go silent when you turn around- there is definitely a 'you' rumor floating around. Working in a call center can quickly become getting paid to go back to high school if you're not careful enough. Lesson learned? It is extremely important to remind yourself DAILY the reason why you are working there. The moment you stop reminding yourself why you're there and not completing your own personal goals, that's the moment your dream begins to fade. And trust me- the job doesn't care. The job's job is to get you hooked on the cash so you can keep coming back and working just enough to keep making them money. Moving on.

The work itself, and climbing the work ladder. The basics for joining Nestle: Apply, start a training class, pass the tests, move on to "the nest" where you get trained to take calls. The training class is more about who you are, and they ask questions like, "If you were stranded on an island, what would you bring with you?" and then we pass a ball and say things about ourselves. We meet different leaders which once we get past the nest, then we join one of those leaders that we had previously played with. After joining one team, I realized I was better in another, and made my move to change teams. I did not know this at the time but changing teams meant I got a pay raise because I had something to offer this new team. The joys of speaking more than one language. Less than three months pass, and I had already been given two raises. Shortly after that I was part of a safety committee, then I gave a great idea to a higher up, my idea was taken, and I was given zero credit. It wasn't a small idea, it was pretty big. You may have seen it on a commercial, or if you have one of their water bottles, you might be able to interact with it. Either way, I kept my sketches of my idea- but for nothing. It means nothing. You mean nothing. It matters not what you contribute to the company as long as you keep their secrets and don't talk about them when you are finished working for them.

Side note, they have this awful little rule that they sneak into the work contract that basically says, if you come up with a great idea while you are on the clock at the job, whatever it is, write a book, invent something, etc. : they own it. Not you- them. It's theirs. I knew this all along but the moment it happened to me it felt so unreal.

The call flow process...the call comes in and it gets answered for you. You don't choose when you answer, it beeps twice and boom, you're in the call. Your greeting comes, and even though you have a mute button, do not use it. Do what the customer says, no matter what. If you do too much, points taken. If you don't do enough, points taken, and a bad review. Surveys matter. The reason why they matter is because surveys get reviewed, in a group meeting, out loud, and in front of everyone. It is embarrassing if you get a bad survey, and leads to the points being taken, which matter when it comes to the 'raise or no raise' moment. When you get a good review, it's a quick pat on the back and then quickly move on to the next bad review because let's face it, people like to watch the fire, they just don't like to get burned. The company has an entire point system where you start at 100 and then everything you fail to do you go down from there, and it is a very slippery slope! For example: let's say a customer calls because someone messed up on their bill. We have over charged the customer and we owe them a refund. Instead of saying sorry and taking care of it, wishing them a good day, and moving on to the next call, we have to upsell the customer after resolving their issue, and we also have to try to get them to schedule an 80$ cleaning service. You don't do that and it is 20 points removed for each thing you failed to do. That's just one week, or month. The point system changes faster than I can blink sometimes. Okay that was a bit exaggerated, the point system changes faster than I can read my emails. And let's just mention this about the emails while we are at this point: You are flooded with over 30 emails a day and you are expected to keep up with all of them, in between calls. You are not supposed to read them on your breaks, and you cannot read them after you clock out, even if you work from home. In between calls sometimes doesn't even exist, and if it is one of those crazy billing cycles that we messed up on big time, they send out an email to let us know that billing messed up and that hundreds of customers are supposed to be calling in to get the adjustments- but here is the funniest thing! Every single time you make an adjustment, they track it and if your adjustments count gets too high, you also get dinged for that too!!! If you do not make the adjustment, you are a bad rep and the customer will give you a bad review which we previously discussed you get points taken for that as well. If you make too many adjustments you get marked in red and then your numbers are bad. Yes, they color code your numbers. And they put it on a huge white board for everyone to see. They hold you publicly accountable for all that you do and don't do. I can remember walking by the boards and it always reminded me of Christmas- I should've known. There is way too much to even tell about working at this call center that I would have to write a book to tell you everything that truly goes on. It consumes my mind just writing about all the circles they made us run to achieve every goal, or mark you red until you accomplished them.

The last bit is who you are left with. The crumbles leftover of the 'you' pie that you served this work party. I will say it is not all dynamites and grenades they leave you with. I came out of it a better person. I did not make my dream happen after the 6 years I served them, however, I learned to treat customer service reps a lot better. I learned to be more patient with everyone including my son. I learned how to diffuse situations more easily, and the politeness stuck to me pretty hard. I have always been a fairly polite person, but there is no one like an ex customer service rep. I am a better person, just not who I wanted to be. I wanted to be a kick ass massage therapist, with her own business, whatever it may be called. That is simply not where I am today. I moved backwards. I allowed my license to expire, I didn't keep up with my continuing education credits, and I haven't bought my house yet. Over time my goals have changed, especially with this new pandemic issue we have, I no longer think I want to be a massage therapist- because- germs.

Lastly, working in customer service gave me plenty of time to get back to my art loving roots which have been a passion of mine since before I could read and write. I can remember handing my dad a nickel every time he said he was going to the store because he always turned my nickel into a brand new pack of Crayola crayons- the 64 pack. I have graduated from the brand but the true love for it sticks. I've also become addicted to making headpieces and that has been quite a journey itself. I'm not sure who I want to be now that I am 30, but I do know I will NEVER work in customer service again. {*Closes tab, checks on status of customer service applications submitted in the last 48 hours}. What?! Writing doesn't pay much, lol.