Complaint Review: PC LLC Colorado Springs CO

The employment advertisement for a customer service representative I saw in July of 2007 was for a campaign entitled "Drive America" and stated that the hours were part time and that there were great benefits after the initial ninety day probationary period. When I went to apply I saw the same advertising information on the white board in the "talent recruiting" office, however, I learned that I was hired and to be working fulltime. I was told that if I wanted to receive the health benefits that I desperately needed as a single mom I had to be flexible.

The training was from 3pm to midnight, if I wanted a job. I needed a job, so I complied. I learned that I was to be working for Verizon Wireless in my orientation. Surprise! Different campaign, different hours than had been originally told to me and to all of the other people in my training class.

I kept thinking ninety days and I have benefits. I started July 27th and believed that I would have benefits by November first. I later found out in November that I wasn't eligible for my benefits until January 1st!

Training, that was a hoot. My first trainer was clueless as to how to ingratiate the knowledge that we needed to function as knowledgeable reps for a wireless carrier. We made posters, played "get to know you" games and navigated through a few intranet tools, but had no idea how they were to assist us in our job.

I inquired about becoming a part of the management team in training from an operations manager and was told that in a growing company many positions were available for experienced people and that having a degree was not necessary to advance.

After the end of our first out of six weeks of training, we learned that our training class was to switch to days. Surprise!

"The only thing that is constant in a call center is change." This phrase was the moto of all of the management.

On the job training was sporadic, barely supported by knowledgeable and experienced reps, and we moved desks all of the time. More change and more surprises. I was assigned to 2 managers before I finally went to my permanent team.

Teams were based upon the schedule that you got, schedules were determined by the score a person received in training and attendance.

Two parents, one a single mom of a 3 year old and the other an army wife who's husband got deployed, requested different schedules than what their training managers wanted them to work because of their need for day care. The training manager responded in the negative to their requests, so the mommies went to the work force manager and pleaded their cases, and got the different shifts that they so desperately needed. After having their shifts ok'd the training manger found out and so did their manager. The single mom was so completely devastated by the response from both managers that she had an anxiety attack. How did the management respond? By quarantining her in a bathroom and then escorting her out of the building by way of security. Two of the CSR's teammates went to the operations and training manger to see if they could find out how she was faring, they were turned away with warnings.

Fly or fry, that was the idea. For the outsourced VZW, Verizon Wireless, contracted employee there were 2 info databases. One database has the M&P's, methods and proceedures, to follow for everything between how to handle a suicidal call and how, (and if) to return a customer's money. There are hundreds of M&P's, a lot of them get replaced with new ones, but the old ones stay in the system. The other database just confused the hell out of everyone. The info in it was useless because it consistantly gave partial information.

Find the customer, if the system will work properly, sometimes when a call would come in 4 and 5 other customer records would pop up, or a customer would have 5 accounts with VZW. Confusion was rampant. Nobody understood how to flow through a call, get the info a customer needed, and do it according to how Verizon wanted it.

People cried in frusteration, smoked like chimneys and B.S.ed their way through hundreds of phone calls. There were a few people who had been working the VZW campaign a bit longer and could navigate their way through the system better than the newbies and they sporadically and unreliably attempted to assist those CSRs who were lost.

Breaks in training were 15 minutes, 20 if the trainer felt like it. Lunches were an hour, 45 min for the over-acheiving trainer. On the floor, where people were really stressed and needed longer breaks, the breaks were 10 min and lunch 30 min. There was no singing back in grace period for conflicting phone, computer, breakroom clocks, and personal cell phone times.

The rate of people who made it after a training class was less than half! Did management and upper management know about the difficulties that people faced everyday? Yes.

I went to the highest manager for the VZW campaign and took the risk of being the voice of the employees. The response that I received was that all of the situations that had been going on; people crying in confusion, the help that employees needed being withheld, and anyone who tried to make a difference being railroaded, were to be expected and that management was aware of the situation.

My personal grudge is against the manager who thought that they could get away with anything, including determining who would receive promotions to management. In training myself and other CSR's with a lot of experience under our belts in the telecommunications industry, were told when inquiring about career advancement that we had to go through out trainers when applying for any postions.

I applied once for a trainer position, once for Quality Assurance, and twice for team manager.

I worked hard, never missed a day and was tardy once. I eventually was noticed for how smoothe my communication on the phones was and was given the opportunity to support the trainees that came into the preparation phase for the transition onto the phones, or production.

I was approached by the manager of the QA team while on what was called "floor support"; help to the newbies. The newby OJT area was called nesting and the newbies were known as nesters. The nesting team manager, the focus of my grudge, walked over and gave me an ultimatum in front of the QA manager. The nesting manager asked me if I wanted to be a production team manager and have the income that came with the position. I voiced the confirmation of that desire and declined the position in QA The QA position was a pay increase of a dollar, whereas team manager is a pay increase of 5 dollars. I then asked the nesting team manager what other steps would be required of me to obtain the position that I desired. The TM then told me that coaching and development would be next followed by the shadowing of a production TM.

I continued in my role of floor support for over 2 months, believing and being encouraged towards what I thought was the grooming for a management position.

I finally went into the Talent Aquisition office to ascertain the status of my application after the second round of team manager hirings. I was told by the manager of that office that no one but TA could determine a person's hirability for management positions.

I realized that I had been lied to and used by the nesting TM. I confided in her my desire to achieve a career in telecommunications, an industry that I had been in since the age of sixteen, starting with Future Call Telemarketing West selling credit cards.

Just so you know, I am not some street-wise, uneducated, partying slacker who just happened to get got knocked up. I am a maticulisly groomed, stylish, well-spoken individual. I was previously married, served in the military and have close ties with my family. My vehicle is paid for, I don't have credit card debt, and I don't borrow money from people. I am a non-smoker, not obese, and I have an over-developed sense of empathy for other people.

I am eloquent in my speech, pleasant in my table manners, and fastidious with my appearance. I am tenderhearted and sensitive.

If you met me, you would like me and seek me out again for company. I have more people in my cell phone contact list than I can keep track of and my myspace page doesn't just have Tom as my friend.

I can name the majority of the employees with whom I worked with, numbering in over 100. I can tell you the ages of their children. I have given rides to people stranded at work who's shifts did not end the same time as mine. If there was an employee of the month award, I would have been a viable candidate.

In my travels of frantically assisting over 100 people in a very large call center, and having to wear comfortable shoes, I visited a disgruntled and sour employee who stretched the truth when they felt the need. This particular employee had lost the ability to think independently. When I did my best to assist this person and point her in the right direction, they decided that they wanted 3 more opinions before being happy with feedback. This individual had a habbit of doing this.

Long story short, one very nasty, racist, agist and selfish employee decided to tell a falsehood to the nesting TM. One would think that a manager would look at all sides of the story and investigate the individual making allegations against someone with a great track record. Nope.

I was told by the nesting TM that I was percieved as a bully and that I had been lying to my fellow employees about the database info and lying to customers. I was floored.

The nesting TM also got personal in their conversation with me and purposely made me have an uncontrollable emotional reaction, crying about the discussion of my infant and the fact that I was a single parent trying to raise a child to be a healthy and productive, well rounded person.

I was sent to the phones. I had not been on the phones since 2 weeks after my training. I had been paraded around by the nesting TM as a model employee for new people to emulate and shared amongst the production team managers as an assistant. I had found myself helping people and answering questions during my lunch and breaks.

After being stripped of my "supervisor withou the pay" role, I couldn't go anywhere in the call center without having someone shouting my name to have me come ove and assist them. Once I relayed my newfound status, people were so frusterated and dejected at the fact that I they had no one reliable to assist them.

I learned from the nesting employees that a fellow member of floor support who had been vying for a "pomised" management position, had been undermining me and other members of the team by spreading rumors.

I went to the upper management at that point in time and was rebuffed.

What happened to those individuals who tried to ennact change and truly enable and help those who were struggling? They were fired and their reputations sullied. It wasn't enough that people found themselves without a job, nasty rumors were started by the upper management after people left.

This job is not for the individual who has a great sense of morals, thinks outside the box, and genuinely wants to help the human race.

If you are an apathetic person who has a high tolerance for tolerating the mindless obedience that is required by employees, don't mind being used and lied to by those in management of you, you will fit right in.

I want to say thank you to the other individual who wrote about their experience with PRC and the management team there.

Dynamo
Sedalia, Colorado
U.S.A.