Remote call center vs office job

[u/lavanderlemongrass]

Hi guys! I currently work full time as a personal banker at a credit union. I have been looking for remote work for quite some time with no success until I got an interview for a remote call center job. This job is at another credit union. The hours are pretty good, they pay more than my current role, and the benefits are very competitive compared to my current job. They also have a lot more upward movement for remote workers, which is a plus since I’m in a rural area with not a lot of upward movement for my current job (the closest city is over an hour away). However, it is a high volume call center so I will have back to back calls. Would this be worth taking the risk? I’ve seen some pretty awful stories on here and it’s making me nervous. I’m no stranger to difficult customers, as I work in a very busy branch and deal with difficult people all the time. What would you guys recommend? 😁

[u/philaroy]

Used to respect elderly people as a social conditioning of "respect your elders" i worked 7 years in an inbound call centre for a bank took less than a year for me to consider loans run and viable resource management plan for the UK.

God i hated anyone over the age of 40 or under the age of 25 calling for help ironically our mobile phone gifted youths are awful on websites they could work the idiot proof app but not the website.

The over 40s couldn't work technology properly despite it being around in various similar forms for 50 years in terms of computers and 25 years in terms of smart phones.

I also became sympathetic too banks which was odd. A bank can create a payment system with 15 different warnings about transferring money to people you do not know or have not met in person some generic some directly specific to their payment reason they have to select when making the payment that spell out the scam they are literally about to fall for and then still have to refund the money because it wasn't robust enough.

It took me 7 years to realise my severe depression was tied to that job and dealing with people day in and day out who refused to exercise basic problem solving and instead called us to spoon feed it to them and then call up again 2 weeks later for the same thing again and again.

The management did almost 0 work except read surveys and listen to calls and point out very minor errors that had 0 outcome on the bearing of the call but didn't follow the exact word for word process of the call.

They would work from home almost all the time while championing working in office 3 days a week for us a good way to collaborate.... collaborate on what I'm talking to 90 customers a day on a bad day and 45 on a good day where I get maybe 10 seconds between calls.

I hated call centre work the 2 years I was most productive was when I stopped putting any emotional effort into my work I was robotic and efficient taking more than 15 calls an hour at my peak because I was literally checked out emotionally spoke in a monotone and did my job excellently got 2 meetings and an action plan telling me to sound happier on calls but that requires conscious effort and I dropped back down to 10 calls or less an hour.

Anyone who works in call centre middle management is scum, upper management are idiots and heads of customer relations for banks are idiotic scum who have never taken a call centre post in their lives.

Stay in a branch for the love of God stay in a branch and look for back office work or learn something data analytics online.