I suppose the imment loss of one's job shouldn't be funny. But since it's not my job, the laughter comes easy. And it would be hard for anyone who's ever been employed at a call center to not be amused at a report coming from the Pioneer Press: Sykes To Close Minnesota Call Center, Fire More Than 200 Workers. (Note, the headline writer needed 11 words to capture the essence of this mundane little story; who's writing these things, Gore Vidal!?).

It seems that after only 2 years in business, a 432-seat call center in Eveleth MN is shutting down, and according to the article, it's because the workers were unreliable dumbsh*ts.

The Eveleth call center never employed more than 300 workers, and had an annual turnover rate of about 100 percent (emphasis added).

According to a recent state survey of 87 Sykes employees in Eveleth, fewer than 5 percent had a four-year college degree.

By contrast, more than 99 percent of staff at Sykes call centers in Costa Rica, India and the Philippines have completed college, said [CEO and company founder John] Sykes, and 35 to 40 percent have master's degrees.

"They consider a call-center job a career," he said.

You can almost hear Mr. Sykes's disappointment and hurt feelings as he says that. Like he felt he was throwing this great party up in Eveleth and nobody showed up. Well let me tell you something, Mr. Sykes, you weren't throwing a great party. In fact, I suspect your party had all the joy and promise of the 2002 DFL election night gala at the Raddison. Or all the spontaneous revelry and subtle pleasures of the New Year's Eve bash at Hot Shots in Burnsville.

Call center jobs generally suck. Astoundingly suck. Astronomically suck. The kind of suck normally associated with the event horizon around a black hole. The kind of suck usually seen during .... well I'll stop there, before the Fraters site starts to get innundated by people typing "suck" into a seach engine for all the wrong reasons. (Coincidently, most of these people actually work in call centers).

How do I know this? I had the distinct pleasure of wiling away my first post college working years in command of a telephone center in town here, with a company that's now out of business. (No causation has ever been established between these two variables--although their lawyers did repeatedly try).

Most of the jobs at a call center consist of working the phones, either dialing out or accepting incoming calls. At my previous employer we did only the former, and that means cold calling. We did marketing research, which is marginally better than trying to sell something, but the dynamics of each are similar. That is, spending all day (or all night) calling people who don't want to talk to you and don't have any self interest to participate in what your attempting to accomplish. Generally speaking, those few who will participate are desperately lonely, hopelessly deranged, or gloriously drunk. (Given Eveleth's proximty to Canada--I'm surprised they didn't have more success, at least in interviewing their Northern neighbors ).

The vast majority who don't want to cooperate communicate their wishes by tersely spitting "not interested" and hanging up or by shouting obscenities and slamming the phone down. Needless to say, neither reaction is conducive to the creation of high self esteem or satisfaction in one's job. In other words, the essential nature of the job itself has a negative affect on employee morale.

Throw in the need to be articulate and pleasant and professional and quick thinking if you?re to achieve any level of success at all. Plus the unyielding demands to "PRODUCE PRODUCE PRODUCE!" from the overbearing, unsympathetic and wildly unrealistic management, the use of poorly written scripts and surveys, and malfunctioning telecom equipment and computer hardware and what are you left with? An extremely difficult job with no status that provides no personal benefits whatsoever. Oh and did I mention that these jobs are usually hourly (and low) wage based, with no medical benefits?

Management of these companies are left left hiring only those who can't find work anywhere else, those who can compete only on availability and on price. This is why companies like Sykes choose to put their call centers in cities like Eveleth, cities that are presumed to be full of people who don't have any other options. But I guess they were wrong.

I do consider it a sign of the general health of our economy that we don't have those with college degees attempting to fill these positions. People go to college specifically to avoid a lifetime of work spent in spirit killing drudgery that provides no material benefit. And as long as there are college graduates in India and Costa Rica and the Phillippines lining up for this opportunity, Sykes is exactly right when he says:

If you are not a global company today, you are not going to be in business tomorrow."

Labels: Business

Posted by Saint Paul--Link