So Foe...

How was the first day of training?

it wasn't bad.

there were about 15/20 of us, in a very "classroom"-esque setting, sitting at individual workstations, as we all went through the process, with one person being the leader.

i was the fourth or fifth person to run through the process, and it was a breeze.

the main point stressed today is that we can never allow the caller, or candidate, to gain control of the call. they're calling, and we ask them the questions, never the other way around.

of course, if they ask us a question like where we are, we give them a generic response, like "the central recruiting office", and if they ask where that is, we flat out tell them that it's in chicago. from that point on, we must lead them into the next step of the process, otherwise all is pretty much lost.

a lot of us are getting used to the fact that it's okay to not know what to do, and when that happens, it's alright to put them on hold and ask for help from a supervisor. also, some of us had trouble realizing that if we get to a point in the process, and we realize that if we need to go back, there is always a way to do that. we're never really lost.

tonight i actually have homework. i have to fill out some tax forms, call a number and register myself for something, and read half of the employee manual.

it was hot as fuck here today in chicago, but it was COLD AS AN ICEBERG in that training room. i'll have to remember to bring a hoodie tomorrow.

i actually managed to get to and from work through the subway system, and at no point did i feel lost, or overcome by the complexity of it all.

sheeeit. i'm fuckin' hungry. i think j.a.'s gonna cook some fish. mmmm...

Cool. Reminds me of my baby's training, she worked at the customer service for our biggest mobile phone company. Only in the first day of training they got pizza. Lots and lots of pizzas...
I like that leading the conversation thing. Can't wait to hear job stories from you...From my experience (many of my friends worked or still do) at that mobile phone company, phone jobs are the most fun. But they can get annoying as hell, too...

oh yeah, i'm sure i'll have all sorts of interesting "war stories" as jean-anne calls them.

Can't wait. All you gotta do is keep your cool...

aww yeah, dude.

it ain't no thang, once you get the swing of it.

And will the keep a tight leash on you guys? The supervision, will it be rough? I mean they used to fire people here for raising their voice or whatever.

well, we do have to maintain a level of professionalism, because we're representing these companies that have contracted us to screen their applicants, and we also have to maintain a bond of confidentiality by not revealing that we're working for that company.

we have to give the impression that we are that company. for example, if there are no longer any job openings for the company the candidate is calling about, we aren't allwed to say "well, we've got some other openings for this other company!". we can however tell them about other openings being offered by the company that they're calling for.

also, we're not allowed to wear t-shirts with logos on them, shorts, or any type of head-gear, like hats, or bandannas.

which is no big issue with me. although, i'm gonna have to buy some more plain shirts...

t-shirts and jeans are perfectly acceptable, as long as the jeans don't have holes in them.

i'm gonna have to ask about colored dreadlocks, though.

some of the people in my training class had tattoos on their arms and faces, so if they've got a problem with dreadlocks, i'll be a little peeved.

other than that, everything seems cool.

Sounds none too shabby.  I want lots of "people are IDIOTS" threads being posted in The Pile.

Dress code doesn't sound too bad.  There's not really anything resembling one over here (people walk around barefoot), but I guess if you're allowed to do jeans n' T's you'll be fine.

yeah, 'nersh, i'm going to use the board as my main source of venting, because i've vowed not to come home and vent at jean-anne, because i dislike it when she does that to me...

Good call on that Foe. I feel exactly the same way and very rarely complain about work to Lisa (my gf). However, she had a bad habit of coming home after a bad day and continuing to have that bad day. She would basically slam cupboards and bowls and whatever. It would really piss me off so I would tell her She's alot better about it now, but it took several heart-to-heart talks (I didn't want to seem corny, but I couldn't think of any other way to put it ) and time to break that habit...

training was neat, today.

we got out at about 2 or 2:30ish.

things are getting easier, and they seem more natural.

i socialized a lot more with the group.

there are these five people in the group who are especially cool. one sits next to me. she's probably near my age, i guess, and i assume she's at least partially hispanic. then there's the two dudes who sit behind me who seem to know eachother outside of work. one's this tall skinny, really down-to-earth-y black dude. the other guy is this skinny white kid with hair just a little shorter than mine, and he always wears it in a ponytail. then there's this chick who sits in my row, who's black. she's cool as hell. you can tell she doesn't fuck around with bullshit. pretty straight-forward and cool. then there's antonio down on the end of the row. he's hispanic, too, i think. he's a pudgy dude with funny hair. it's short and bushy. he's got a tear tattoo on the corner of his left eye, and a cobra on one of his forearms. he's a really shy type of dude, and he was telling me about how one of his fillings fell out and he's too afraid to go see the dentist because the noise of the drill scares him. he's a really character.

there are a few people, mostly near the back of the classroom who are just plain antisocial, which is fine by me.

and there's the one designated chick that everyone hates. i might have mentioned her earlier. yesterday she was really cool to have around, because she asked all the right questions, but as soon as we started doing examples, and having the procedure explained, she got really annoying, because she doesn't realize that while she's expected to bring a certain amount of enthusiasm and personality to the position, she doesn't realize that there are things you can and can not say to the candidates.

our instructor, dave (short bald black dude with glasses) will be telling us what we're supposed to say if a certain question is asked, and she'll reply with "but i would want to tell the candidate that they might want to look around for another job, if they're disqualified...", and dave is like "no, you wouldn't. you'd tell them exactly what you're supposed to tell them, and absolutely nothing else..."

i guess she just doesn't understand that things like that are going to lead to her either not passing the test, or eventually getting fired.

also, i'm the only person from the "open house" screening i talked about in the "yay. employment" thread that made it to the training sessions.

turns out only 4% of all people who apply make it to the training phase. it felt kinda cool to know that. as dave said it "trust your abilities. you made it this far, and that says something. so don't doubt yourself."...

also, more numbers: since the forming of the company in the mid nineties, we've taken over 15 million calls, and we're owned by a "100 million dollar company"...

Nice, Foe. Still, didn't they give you anything to eat?

nope. i brought a peanut butter and jelly sammich, though. but they give us free water and coffee.

unfortunately, the closest place where you can get in and out with food in that neighborhood is a joint called "mr. beef", where the burgers and stuff are reportedly expensive, or at least overpriced.

well, today was the last day of training.

we had 45 minutes to take the test, and that seemed like it flew right by.

there were a few questions that i skipped to come back to later, but i didn't have time. i was also dead wrong on one of my answers, so i got an 84.

so, i start monday.

after we took the tests we went downstairs to the call center to sit in with recruiters, and listen in on the calls, just to see how everything swings.
for some odd reason i got placed with one of the two spanish speaking recruiters who were working at the time. she was cool. bilingual. her name was sarai (pronounced "sada-e", i think...) and she was really cool.

then we went to lunch, and when we came back, it was about 1, and we were taken to a training area on the third floor where we took calls for 3 hours. some of them may have been fake calls, just to run us through things, and our calls were probably heavily monitored.

first time callers are a goddamned breeze. there isn't shit to it.

call backs, which are usually people calling back to reschedule, make sure their directions are right, or to confirm their appointments, were really throwing me off. when they call back, we should already have a file on them, and when we pull it up, they have a status, which is expressed in a two-part code, which tells us why they're calling, and for some reason, i just blanked on what the codes mean.

so i'm going to re-read that info over the weekend a few times, and hopefully on monday callbacks will go a little bit smoother.

also, out of our whole class, only one person failed.

and there's the one designated chick that everyone hates. i might have mentioned her earlier. yesterday she was really cool to have around, because she asked all the right questions, but as soon as we started doing examples, and having the procedure explained, she got really annoying, because she doesn't realize that while she's expected to bring a certain amount of enthusiasm and personality to the position, she doesn't realize that there are things you can and can not say to the candidates.

our instructor, dave (short bald black dude with glasses) will be telling us what we're supposed to say if a certain question is asked, and she'll reply with "but i would want to tell the candidate that they might want to look around for another job, if they're disqualified...", and dave is like "no, you wouldn't. you'd tell them exactly what you're supposed to tell them, and absolutely nothing else..."

i guess she just doesn't understand that things like that are going to lead to her either not passing the test, or eventually getting fired.

yep. she did fail. with a score of 61. sucks to be her. apparently she wasn't too crushed, as she claims she just got a job at a local restaurant called "leona's", which has at least a couple of locations here in chicago. once again, sucks to be her - you couldn't get me to work in the food service industry for all the money in the world.