"It's only a call centre job ......"

[berrdloud]

I've worked for a well known bank based in a contact centre for 10 years.
Believe me the interview process wasn't easy and you needed 5 GCSE A-C.
It was 3 different interviews and the job is very challenging.
My friends cousin (18) has just got a job in the contact centre for 10 weeks temp contract basically passing customers on to us to deal with complaints (so basic 1 week training and no in depth bank training)

My friend rang and said oh "cousin" has just got a temp contract at your place but she's so embarrassed to be working there.
I told her not to be embarrassed even tho it's a poor poor job and to think of the money.
Even a trained chimp could do it ....
(Bare in mind she's 35 and never worked a job in her life )
Aibu to be annoyed ? And like she's throwing shade to me and assuming it's a job for people with 0 brains
I have a levels,I went to Uni and I genuinely love my job.

She doesn't sound like much of a friend!

I hate people like this. I'm a retail manager and our sector is constantly looked down on as just stacking shelves yet the country needed people like us this past two years and for a short time attitudes changed but now they have shifted back as people forget.

It's true people you meet ask you what you do for a living so they can assess how much respect to give you and unfortunately it will never change. Ignore your friend because her opinion doesn't pay your bills.

It's anything but an easy job. I wish the people who sneer at it could do it for a few months.

YANBU. I hate it when people look down on other people's jobs.

The organisation I work for has a contact centre team and their jobs are not easy at all. They need a lot of training, loads of knowledge about some really complicated and specialised aspects of what we do, and they also have to manage callers who are sometimes discussing very sensitive or distressing situations. They really know their stuff and they're very skilled.

YANBU

i worked in a call centre in financial services for years and it was hard to do the job well, requiring a huge amount of product and process knowledge, as well as soft skills to deal with customers.

sadly call centres are very undervalued which results in high turnover and poorly trained staff who do a crap job, which perpetuates the idea that it’s an rubbish job

Ah this old chestnut - when women who basically live off a man and couldnt survive without him make judgements about other people's hard work.

She sounds unhappy and jealous that you actually have a job and provide for yourself and she doesn't. I'd be saying to her that I found what she said very rude.

You need new friends.

Damn right she is throwing shade at you. What a rotten friend. I mean why say that to you knowing you work there. Keep your head held high OP, absolutely nothing wrong with you and it says more about her.

She isn't your friend. And I'd bet my ass your cousin didn't even slag the job off. Sounds like she is trying to cause a rift between your family and slag you off too.

Tell the cow never to contact you again and warn your cousin about her too.

It’s the same as when people tell you ‘Just take a job in Asda or something for now’ when you’re out of work. The idea that there are jobs you can ‘just take’ and an employer will be happy to have someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit, instead of someone who actually wants the job, is ridiculous - as well as offensive those doing said job.

I imagine she’s one of the types who would rather live on benefits than do one of those types of jobs.

No, shelf stacking/checkout work/call centre jobs aren’t for everyone. And I do think that suggesting someone should “just get a job in Asda” isn’t necessarily meant to be degrading when that person either has a degree level education or is looking for work involving certain skill or experience, but equally many people do do those jobs because they want to. Because they want a job and not some kind of high powered career, and in the case of call centre work, people might start out at 0 but they become highly trained in the product they’re dealing with.

I had a friend who had been looking for work for 8 years. and when I sent her some jobs and offered to send her cv to my manager at the organisation I worked for then she said, “thanks, but those kinds of jobs just don’t excite me.” And so she continued to live on benefits and to voice her upset at not being able to find a job.

I would currently do any job. But warehouse/shelf stacking/checkout work is out because of inaccessibility (I am VI), and even companies looking for admin/call centre staff want more experience now, and crucially, most companies no longer accept character references from voluntary roles and want professional references now.

"DF - I was thinking maybe you should apply at my work too since a chimp could do it and with you being out of work for sooooo long"

@Justkeepon ha ha ha can you imagine her face if I actually said that to her 😂

What on earth are you on about?

@yesthatisdrizzle, the person who made the comment is 35 and has never worked. I doubt that she's an heiress.

I work at McDonald's and you wouldn't believe the amount of people who look down at me for it
The same people are happy for me to do the job and they live off my taxes while they sit on the dole smoking weed and scoffing crap with no intention ever working
It's a hard job-and someone has to do it

Yes she sounds like a cow but in fairness it does sound like the job he's going to be doing and your job are miles apart, but just happen to be working for the same company and out of the same building (albeit you might be wfh now?)

In all likelihood his job as you've described it, will be boring, doesn't require any of the knowledge and skills you've built up, probably didn't need the same grades and is badly paid but that doesn't mean yours is and she might (giving her the benefit of the doubt) not have been trying to imply it was.

I have worked in a "customer care" (read-complaints line) call centre for an internationally known service provider, and I now work as a very well-paid freelance senior strategist in ecommerce. The call centre work was infinitely more challenging and stressful. Any moderately clever bullshit artist with the ability to make a pretty PowerPoint presentation could do my current job, but I barely held it together in the call centre and even after a year I would never say I got "good" at it.

I guess it's easy for me to say from the position I'm in but the people who make the most money aren't the people who work the hardest or who are the most clever. The people who make the most money are the ones with luck, connections, or who realise that if you want to "move up" without the benefit of luck and connections, you have to change jobs every two years, gently lie on your CV (no you weren't the tea lady, you were the catering consultant), and have massive bolshy confidence (fake, in my case).

When I was a child my mother used to tell me "all work is noble"

I also work in a customer service job, dealing with enquires on the phone and via email. I work bloody hard at it to ensure our customers are getting a good service, I work for a relatively new small business and genuinely care about how my work reflects on the rest of our small team. That's good enough for me.

What did you say to your friend OP?

I'd reply something like "well yes a smart chimp could possibly do his entry level, one week training, pass on all the difficult calls starter job. I'm sure David Attenborough would be very interested in the miraculous chimp that could do my degree level, x years experience, x level of training and experienced role".

Does your friend work in Downing Street? Sue Grey highlighted how some people there look down on others doing certain jobs.

To be honest it wouldn't annoy me - simply because she is in no way qualified to make a judgement on it so her opinion doesn't count!