To hate call centre work?anyone worked in one?

[redbedled]

A month ago I started work in a call centre and I hate it.
My last job was in a department store for 8 years which I loved but it closed down and this feels like torture.
Yes the money is better but it's giving me anxiety (already had it but it's getting worse)
It's a sales role,8am till 6.30pm
I have to get up at half 5 to catch the 6.15 bus then I'm not getting home till 8.15 pm.
It's mom -fri
The people I work with are really loud and cocky and a lot younger than me.
I'm late 30s and shy and just want to take calls and go home but it's not like that.
Are they all like this ?
Everyone slags everyone off.
I feel like a fish out of water.
They record your screens so watch every move you make,you have to sell on every call (even if you miss sell ) they take advantage of elderly customers or lonely customers who think you want to chat to them (I do ) but then you have the team leader in front
Sell
Sell
I'm feeling sick every day.
I can't sleep
I'm getting 3 hours a night
I don't want to let people down by quitting but I can't stand it.

Soul destroying.

I took a significant pay cut to get out of a call centre role op, the stress was unbelievable. I say this as someone normally confident and rarely stressed beforehand. I was on just shy of £14 per hour and dropped to nmw which was then £6.70, people thought I was mad but that is how bad it was.

@LoisWilkersonslastnerve I am on £12 a hour and previously £8.72 but I can honestly say the money isn't worth it.
I prefer my sanity

Can I also add I was doing well in the job but it's never enough, the constant pushing and micro managing is soul destroying. I had so called professional jobs with a lot of responsibility previously and wasn't feeling in any way close to the pressure in the call centre.

Cut your losses, honestly. Good luck!

Hahhha yes I did a solid decade of it in different companies/positions and now I can’t even have a phone on my desk.

I swear a ringing phone gives me PTSD flash backs of years of verbal abuse.

I only use my mobile now for minimal work calls and work just has to deal with that (not in call centre anymore)

Call centres are the devil I’ve never worked in one but I know people that have . Even monitor how long you go to the toilet and things like you can’t use the toilet the first hour you start and the last hour before you leave .
High turnover of staff in all places so don’t worry about letting anyone down they don’t give a shit about the health and welfare of staff .
Look for something now and hopefully you can quit you health is more important. It may be more money but it’s a loooog day so is it more money I mean most jobs are 37-39 hour weeks yours is 50+ hours

Thanks everyone I feel so much better about it now.
I was thinking "am I being too sensitive " if I needed to stop whinging etc but now I don't feel like I'm alone In my thinking.
We are allowed 15 mins of toilet breaks in 10 hour shift.
Which included the time to walk to the bathroom and get back to your desk.

Ugh call centre work is really bad. I lasted 1.5 weeks in one job then I tried it again as inbound. This was a 2nd job I did part time. I left after a month and got bar work (obvs not around ATM though) which was much better.

I'd rather starve than work in a call centre now.

Find another job. I worked at an inbound call centre for almost a year. I cried on the way to and from work every single day. I and others also spent our 15 minute breaks crying in the loos, and if we were 3 seconds late we had to make up those 3 seconds, but only on a Monday so they would add up the 43 seconds you weren't logged in and you would log in 43 seconds early on Monday.

I quit with no job lined up as I honestly thought I might throw myself off the railway bridge I walked over on the way there.

Honestly OP you don't sound able to stand it. My Ds worked in one for a while but just quit one day and took a cleaning job.
Like you, he has morals and good ethics and hated being told to upsell to people in their 70s who had no idea about the products and were happy to chat.
He said he used to be sick every morning with stress.
Cleaning might not be for you but it's peaceful, you often work alone or with a small team and I have done the job, its actually fun (but then I m odd in that I like cleaning).
Honestly dont half kill yourself for this job, shops will be opening up again and recruiting and you have a good chance with your experience.
UC is not as bad as you think as a stop gap and will help with job searches etc.
Good luck. Get out of the battery farm asap.

Yeah, I work in CS in a call centre. It’s soul destroying but luckily there’s no upselling for me, which is one pro, I guess. I work for NS&I and we’ve been in the news for bad CS but the general public just do not understand the pressure we are under at all, it’s just a lame excuse to them, apparently we sit around not answering calls. As if I’d have a job if I call avoided. There is the constant threat of disciplinary action for the most minor things.

I’m trying desperately to leave but I’m after something easy and part-time while I work on my health.

No job is worth the effect this is having on your mental health, can you go off sick with stress and look for something else?

I did that kind of job for 2 year. I hated it and used to get a headache alot. I definitely felt like we were taking advantage of elderly people, who didn't understand. I used to get into trouble for not upselling to elderly customers. All calls were recorded and they would review my calls once a month. The people were bored so were super bitchy. I didn't talk to them, all day. I didn't want to get involved with the slagging off. I was so happy when I left! Try and find a different kind of job.

It is hard work OP. My MIL worked in one for decades, it wasn't selling but checking funds for investors/traders, so customers would ring up and ask how X account was doing. Not as bad as some customer services but sometimes they'd kick off at her if the answers weren't as positive as they wanted.

The worst thing was her break/toilet time was heavily monitored. They actually had a staff meeting once where the Team Leader had printed out stats on how many toilet breaks/how long they were away from their desks per shift - and the text on the spreadsheet was in yellow!!

Yes it's horrendous!! I worked in customer services for a bank in a call centre, it's awful, it's bitchy, calls are recorded, they watch your screens, you have targets, and if you go over then you have to explain yourself in your 1 to 1's as to why you've had a 5 minute phone call here, and a 7 minute there, the pressure is awful. And the anxiety got that bad I would drive to work balling my eyes out. I quit in September thankfully.

I work in a small one, customer service based. Monitored yes, but not many targets and no pushing sales
Mix of ages and people, not bad pay and 9hr shifts with an hour of breaks

When I started at the company I'm with now my boss was always really entertained by me checking with her if I was OK to take a toilet break. It was quite a shock to work somewhere where you were trusted to manage your time/workload instead of punished for taking 30 seconds too long in the bathroom.

I did 10 years working in a call centre in the late 90's. It was in the water industry so we had a customer base of over 2 million and as there is only one water company per region your nasty customers couldn't leave your company and go to a competitor.
It was particularly horrible when customers had blocked and overflowing drains or had no water and our field colleagues were stuck on another job miles away.

Call centre work was my worst ever job - I remember they put time limits on how long you could go to the loo! The whole call centre thing is stupid as most employees hate working there and are really stressed so often give poor service , I was very young and unhappy when I worked in one in my defence but I'll admit I used to constantly cut difficult customers off as no manager would ever let me escalate the call and I hated having to deal with customers that were rightly cross/ it was a delivery company and you could straight away see that the package wasn't going to be Out for delivery and there was never a decent excuse to give - you were literally there to be shouted at by angry customers ! I remember they said that 95% attendance was expected and below that they would not be happy so I worked out that meant I could have 5% sick days and took them 🤦‍♀️I lasted nine months . The one good thing was it was incoming calls only so if it was quiet you were allowed to sit reading a book in between calls and there was a good social side to it .

Meant to say after nine months I left - I wasn't sacked surprisingly !! And went to work in a pub which was a million times less stressful ...

You need to leave ASAP as it HAS made you ill. I’m so sorry you’re working in such a toxic environment, if I were you I’d stick my finger up at them and walk out! How can they sell to such vulnerable people like that, it makes me sick!
I worked in a call centre over 20 years ago (catalogue orders) and hating every second of it, like you every minute was monitored including every toilet break!
Can you afford to just leave? What would you like to do? You sound caring and with a good attitude, have you thought about care work in the NHS? They are often advertising for bank HCA’s, have a look on NHS jobs.
But whatever you chose good luck, one day you’ll look back on this time and glad you got out quick!

I have, for several years, and it was absolutely soul destroying. I hated it and it made me ill. I always swore I would never do it again. And now my diaried Public facing job has been moved to WFH for the foreseeable and I'm basically working in a call centre again and there's nothing I can do about it.

@Thirtyrock39

Call centre work was my worst ever job - I remember they put time limits on how long you could go to the loo! The whole call centre thing is stupid as most employees hate working there and are really stressed so often give poor service , I was very young and unhappy when I worked in one in my defence but I'll admit I used to constantly cut difficult customers off as no manager would ever let me escalate the call and I hated having to deal with customers that were rightly cross/ it was a delivery company and you could straight away see that the package wasn't going to be Out for delivery and there was never a decent excuse to give - you were literally there to be shouted at by angry customers ! I remember they said that 95% attendance was expected and below that they would not be happy so I worked out that meant I could have 5% sick days and took them 🤦‍♀️I lasted nine months . The one good thing was it was incoming calls only so if it was quiet you were allowed to sit reading a book in between calls and there was a good social side to it .

Just reminded me that I wasn't allowed to read between calls. I was only allowed a plain cup of water on my desk, no pens. I had to sit with my hands in my lap like a child and not talk. Stupid manager absolutely hated me and I don't know why.

Oh god call centre work is horrific, every minute of your working day scrutinised, going in to work unwell as the return to work meeting was like a police interview, management with zero people skills, no support when receiving significant verbal abuse from customers, overzealous proclamations of looking after workers mental health whilst being to root cause of much of it and doing fuck all to actually provide understanding or help, overlooking bullying behaviour and frequently promoting said bullying individuals, making staff go in after national lockdown because getting a replacement tv for a customer takes priority over a global health crisis......I could go on and on. I left a few years ago actually after I had a fleeting notion to step in front of the train rather than get on it and go into work. I still tear up thinking about how lucky I am to have been able to walk away. No job on earth is worth sacrificing your physical and mental health for.