"Surviving a call centre" is a lad's lit, humorous look at frustrations in dealing with working in a mundane boring, but very necessary job, whilst aspiring to be a successful creative writer and demanding more than the current drudgery will allow. The book self-deprecatingly looks at my own inner demons, laziness and general urge to do anything, but the one thing that I must do in order to keep the wolves from the door - Work in a call centre.
Written outside of chronological order, the story opens with the huge sense of relief at being sacked from my call centre job and looks back at all the frustration and angst that had driven me to that point over the past 10 years of my life. Using anecdotal stories and personal experiences I detail both my own thoughts and aspirations as well as talk about the workings of a call centre and the mischief and fun that so many of us have in there. Using hyperbole and caricature, I look at why call centres exist in the first place and question my own sanity as to how I have managed to survive working in several for over 10 years.
From old ladies talking about Rabbit's to coping with the death of my father and equally traumatic experiences with human resources and team managers, the book follows both the pleasures and the pitfalls of working in one of the world's most employable sectors.
I look at the petty office politics involved in call centre management and the antics a young man is involved in, as he attempts to deal with an oppressive environment, surrounded by odd behaving colleagues and even stranger customers, when all he wants is creative acceptance and financial and emotional stability. The story takes specific events that I have either found odd or funny or have shaped me in some way and looks at what goes on "behind the scenes" whilst customers are on the phone as well as deals with my own personal battles with loss and depression.
Deliberately aggressive but peppered with personal tragedy, the story is intended to be a light hearted angry tirade against the world and my own personal limitations and dreams and is meant to inspire anyone who feels they have a talent or a dream that isn't being properly fulfilled, but instead has to work in a boring oppressive environment in order to pay the bills and conform to their reality, whilst harbouring greater dreams. Very much inspired by Bill Bryson's "Notes from a small island" I use humour and over the top aggressiveness to illustrate my frustrations with customers, colleagues and superiors, whilst poking fun at politics and the world in general. Think "office space meets Bill Bryson via Irvine Walsh and Quentin Tarrentino.
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The cold wind chill hits me like a polar bear slapping at a salmon, before catching it and taking it back to its kin. CHAPTER 1, RELEASE THE PRISONER
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(Independently Published, 27 January 2013, 132 pages, ebook, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I bought this book a couple of years ago for a Popsugar Reading Challenge because the category was to read a book set in your job. I didn't complete the reading challenge so didn't read it at the time. And yes, I worked in a call centre at the time. In the back office. I wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. I enjoyed a lot of things about this book. You really won't get it if you haven't worked in a call centre environment. The back-stabbing, bitchiness, lies, inept management and banter are spot on. I enjoyed the rants scattered throughout about the poor pay, ridiculous hours and procedures. One woman was marked down as AWOL even though she was carted out in an ambulance after collapsing. The author was disciplined for drinking a cup of water at his desk as it was against procedure but the fact it was out of hours and him and a friend were playing commando and rolling around the floor pretending to shoot each other was just fine. The thing that bothered me is the author's attitude to customer service. They come across as the kind of person you don't want on the end of the line when you phone in, shouting at customers, lying and blatantly winding them up.
