Any conclusions are certainly not promising. The bosses, from the giant of
teleperformance and the "castle" of e value to the rising webhelp and the circusof Online sales are trying to adapt to the accelerating change by shifting the
hassle to us. As telephone employees, their rules are not new to us, whether you
play the game at their office or at home. What we certainly know and hold on to
is that we are too many to be ignored and too angry to stop it. And when we
decide to organize and claim, they are afraid of us. In the latter at least we
agree with them. ---- "Do you work from home?" Are you OK!" ---- In the last
year, those of us who work in call centers have heard this phrase many times.
Most of the time from people who are not related to the industry and assume that
the transfer of the shift from the noisy telephone to the security of our living
room is automatically an improvement. And while we certainly have not missed the
incessant noise and whining of those in charge, we have long begun to doubt that
this new situation is a measure of upgrading our work, standard of living or even
the safety of our health.
Attempts have already been made, from different directions to discuss the issue.
This text is such an effort not a high analysis of the situation, but, at the
first level, a recording of the thoughts and concerns that arose last year. If
someone says that such a narrative is late, he will be right. One of the reasons
this happened is the difficulty in meeting places and times of employees in this
treaty.
And we will start with that.
Moving the office home has deprived us and deprives us of the main source of
knowledge, strength and tsabouka we have: our colleagues. Knowing who you work
next to, knowing that you have the same problems, that you will be next to each
other if something happens. That you will find together the person in charge
shouting about the goal at the break, that you will agree to change shifts to
cover each other.
That if someone is threatened or fired he will not stand alone. The "necessary"
tele-work tries furiously to deprive us of the opportunity in any effort of
organization, solidarity and even information. And with the speed at which people
in our industry come and go, after a year, we sometimes don't even know the
people we work with on the same shift. And anyone who thinks that a chat replaces
a co-worker relationship has probably never experienced it. Also let's not laugh,
the "unskilled" and "consumable" work hides a lot of knowledge and tricks, which
we did not learn from the useless training sessions but from colleagues older in
the post. No one has learned to manage unsolved problems, toxic customers and
demanding supervisors from zoom.
Chats, emails and calls on the other hand are very convenient for our monitors.
Especially now that, as mentioned above, no one will know, the pressure, the
threats "that it is difficult with the pandemic" and the whining are multiplying.
The quarantine is a period of relaxation only for the small towns and the traffic
in Kifissia. Projects and production run smoothly, and we faster than ever, even
when locked in a room. And the always irrational demands increase as well.
Overtime and "extra work" seem easy since you work in the hall. And if the
internet gets stuck or the power goes out, if there is a job left on the computer
"it will be replaced later". And if something happens to the pc, you will fix it
in your free time.
And as if these "extra jobs" were not enough, the women answering machines who
were entitled to a special purpose leave for the care of children with schools
closed, now have to do two professions at the same time. No surprise. The
non-recognition and remuneration of women labor is a timeless component of the
patriarchal scandal we live around. Taking care while serving customers,
children, household and the elderly is probably possible for our bosses. Of
course, such things pass in the face of the risk of "collapse of the economy", as
did the increase in the abuse of women during the quarantine. Not for us. We have
to stand by our colleagues even if our experiences are two worlds apart.
Then there is the issue of our space. As if it were not enough to pay for palaces
the collapsing apartments in the center, we suddenly had to invent a "discreet,
secluded space" in which to work. And because the bosses have no confidence in
us, they decided that they have the right to monitor the place with a camera and
visit it after warning. This is not a dystopian series on Netflix. These are the
contracts that some of us found in our emails and were forced to sign. And that
even today, with the legal framework of teleworking constantly changing, in the
context of the emergency, we need four labor specialists to understand whether or
not they are illegal.
But is it now our space? We are definitely still paying for him since our
"bosses" passed on the cost of labor on our backs in one day. Electricity,
internet, heating, water, maintenance costs, cleanliness are MONEY they spent and
now we spend. Compensation for all this if you are in the basic is something
close to thirty euros, if you are above the basic is not given, because probably
in Greece in 2021 if you get eight hundred euros you are something like rich.
And yet: do we really want the living room or the room, the place where we rest,
eat and relax to be the same that every day we are cursed while we swallow our
curses and our nerves? Do we want to chat and run to serve thousands of calls to
the room we made to relax? No. And our peace of mind and health is not inferior
to other needs. They are equal and we must defend it. Being human is part of the
service we get paid to offer. Otherwise they would pay robots.
And not very well judging by us. No matter how isolated we are, we hear news
about cuts in "language bonuses", rewards "unprofitable with the data of the
time" and the general disposition to throw on their backs their own difficulty in
adapting to change. Always hitting the salary. And by increasing our own reasons
to stand close and organized.
Most of the disagreements we encounter when making such conversations have to do
with the theory that this condition concerns the good of our health. We will not
blame anyone who worries about their health but we are sure / who has it
completely lost. Those who for years now have been asking us to work unwell and
sick, who have pressured us over the years to come "tomorrow if we are better"
with tithes and fever. Those who hide work accidents forty meters from the door
of the telephone. They were relieved of the responsibility of medical care in the
workplace and can now tell us to work and sick since we are home. Those who told
us on the map last year that they are worried if we stick to anything, the
projects will not be left behind.
What about those who stay away? Which ones are convenient? After all, we loaf
more easily, eat home cheaper and do not waste on tickets or gasoline. When the
context and the place of production change, there are always new places for
sabotage, loofah and tricks to fight it at the same time that others cease to be
valid. It is now almost impossible to get sick or find a good excuse to be late
while you can work on the laptop while you work or just pull the cord and save a
few minutes making it look like an accident.
The benefits we discover while working at home are not the benefits of
teleworking but our adaptability and ingenuity to compete with the bosses and be
able to fight it.
Any conclusions are certainly not promising. The bosses, from the giant of
teleperformance and the "castle" of e value to the rising webhelp and the circus
of Online sales are trying to adapt to the accelerating change by shifting the
hassle to us. As telephone employees, their rules are not new to us, whether you
play the game at their office or at home. What we certainly know and hold on to
is that we are too many to be ignored and too angry to stop it. And when we
decide to organize and claim, they are afraid of us. In the latter at least we
agree with them.
* Source:
https://proledialers.espivblogs.net/2021/05/30/doyleyeis-ap-to-spiti-e-kala-eisai-esy/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32438
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