China Still Cool -- You Pay Later!

It had been two months since I had seen that mother fucker (and I mean mother fucker in a polite, chummy way). Tron called me last night after midnight, asked if I wanted to get a drink. So I went out with him and Novel. They told me about their current working conditions.

The entire campaign has been moved to the worst possible place in the building -- I remember walking past that clot of pods when I was still employed, pitying the bastards stationed there. It's on the far end of the floor, away from everything useful; the nearest bathroom is creepy and small and has signs reminding you to flush and you just stand there wondering what the hell kind of people you work with; and it's a box. It is the smallest, most closed in area in the joint. No windows, just walls on three sides of you. Three-quarters of the way down, the third wall becomes a little half-wall and, above it, sit all of the Quality Assurance (QA) specialists. While QA is not management, they are still required to monitor agent behaviour. Which they do. From up on high. The environment alone would deaden any joy.

But most of the joy-deadening comes from management. The inner-workings of a call centre (at least an inbound call centre) are odd and entirely about having the most control possible at all times. Management's approach is similar to China's -- they withhold all pertinent information about the state of their organization. Their main communication consists of, "Yeah, everything's fine. Nobody worry. We're great." But it's all lies. Most people rely on rumours for their information and those rumours usually turn out to be correct. But nothing is ever done by the agents to circumvent these whispered inevitabilities. Any opposition to the ruling power is swiftly and harshly dealt with. There are informants planted in various locations. All infractions, no matter how slight (say, late for work twice in the last month) are cataloged from day one and utilized as "just cause" when a rabble-rouser needs to be dispatched. In fact, the more I think about it, the only difference between Comcourse and China is that Comcourse agents have access to Google.

A head representative from the client (which I shall thinly disguise as "Transist0r T0wn"... come on, you know who it is... it's just what you needed...) is coming in March. She is bringing two auditors. Rumour #1 has it, the campaign is getting shut down. That rumour has existed for a year, yes, but auditors have never before been a part of things. Rumour #2 states that, during or before the rep's visit, a Firing Squad is being brought out. A Firing Squad occurs when a glut of people are randomly fired for the aforementioned cataloged infractions. This is common. That's why there is a name for it. That happened shortly before the client's last visit.

It's kind of like that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer wakes up thinking it's the Rapture and he yells, "Quick! Get Bart out of the house before God arrives!"

Do they get The Simpsons in China? Hm. I'll look into that.

Point being, I no longer wish I still had my job there. I had fantasies about being called at home by my former boss. He would tell me that no one else could fill the role of data integrity specialist like I could. Won't you please come back? Seriously. I imagined this happening and it delighted me. No more, though. What a god awful place to have to work. I feel badly for Tron and Novel. For months now, Tron has been considering joining the army as an alternative to working there. Novel just goes home and cries. My main regret about being fired was that I was missing some good times with some good people. The good times are dead. And its corpse is just stinking up the joint.

Drinking makes me wake up early. I've no idea why.