Long Duk Dong

I applied at Imax Group International. I find that it is a residential house. Ok. I'm already there. Might as well go with it. Position was for Sales Manager. After entering house, a big Rottweiler dog was barking very loudly and repeatedly. The dog also smelled so bad, I could smell it a few feet away. I was asked to stay in porch and fill up application form with no electric fan and just a few feet from the big stinking barking noisy dog. Another applicant arrived who was much older than me. The dog did the same thing and was handed an application form and asked to stay at the porch with a small table and chairs to fill up form. He looked around and shook his head and then left. After an hour, I was let in to the office of the owner who was Taiwanese. He described his company and products and rules and procedures. He did so in a manner that seemed to berate my experience and my personality. He asked me my expected salary. After hearing and smelling his big stinky barking dog for an hour at 1:00 - 2:00pm in the hot porch, I just gave him an astronomical expected salary and told him to take it or leave it. I knew he would leave it and I wanted to leave too. Maybe I should have left with the older guy who came and went.

I know I'm just an applicant. But I am also a visitor. Leaving me in a hot porch a few feet from his stinking, barking dog tells me that if he treats applicants this way even as a visitor, how much more badly will he treat employees?

I worked in a call center for an American software and ISP for about two and a half years. People told me that the job of a call center agent is a dead end job. I disregarded those remarks. Some even said that you are treated as robots and that the benefits are bait for recruitment purposes and the fun environment were sugar coated empty promises. Perhaps it may be with the company or the leadership policies. I was quite hopeful and performed well in hopes of getting promoted. Over two years went by and two of my able and good managers left. They were replaced by a manager less endowed in management. I was quite dynamic and made plenty suggestions which were mostly unheeded. It turns out that to be promoted, you should be submissive and pliant to ensure status quo. The upper management haphazardly hired agents and then forced agents to be shipped out to other accounts when they overstaffed themselves several times. Because of this, many agents leave and then the overstaffing repeats itself over again. The call center I worked for was all about inertia and status quo. To be promoted you must not challenge existing rules even if it no longer suited the situation. I worked hard but I saw ourselves as dime a dozen. I did not have a life. And because good managers leave and less competent ones take over, employees feel worse. I was left to the elements.

I am no longer working in a call center. I got my life back. I suddenly felt like a bird released from its cage. I now realized how suffocating it was to be in a state of inertia for over 2 years.

I dunno about you. This is not a good way to live and work. Which is why employee turnover is high.

Salaries of companies I know:

ITI Consulting: English Trainer

Outbound calls to teach English to French, Germans and Italians.

Location: IBM Plaza Libis

Salary: Advertised - Average of 30k monthly. Actual - Basic 16k per month plus 85 pesos per lesson per day plus overtime if any plus 10% night differential.

If you give out 14 lessons a day, your monthly income can go up to 39k before taxes etc. Option to receive a fixed income of 25k before taxes for 1st 2 months.

You need to pass a nosebleed type of an English exam plus the usual IQ test.

NCO: Level 2 Technical Support Agent

Inbound technical support for MSN (Microsoft)

Salary: 18k monthly before taxes etc plus overtime if any and 20% night differential.

Nosebleed of a training before actual work. Training period rate 15k before taxes etc.

Level 1 Technical Support Agent.

Inbound Technical Support for MSN or X-Box.

Salary: 15k monthly before taxes etc plus overtime if any plus 20% night differential.

Union Motor Corp and its sister companies (Hyundai): Sales Manager

Salary: 11k plus overriding commission plus insurance commission if buyer avails of insurance at the dealership. All before taxes etc. No overtime pay.

Wellcom Telecoms: (Taiwanese owned)

Operations Manager

Salary: 25k monthly before taxes etc. No overtime pay. On call during weekends. Travel required.

Oh yes, I am very much from the 80s

Women have sex only when they're in love?

Oh no. That not true at all.

Angelia - Richard Marx

Sanjeeb