Bum-mer

Today marks the day I officially became a bum.  I am now part of the statistics of the unemployed in the Philippines.

My manager surprised me last night when she tapped me on the shoulder and told me not to log in to my PC and that we needed to talk.  Somehow, I had a slight idea of what was about to unfold a few minutes later.  She motioned for me to follow her to one of the huddle rooms in the office – for privacy.

Once I sat down across her, she pointed some stuff on a sheet of paper with some form printed on it.  She kept pointing to the box showing my ‘performance’.  I can hear her but my mind was racing.  I barely had time to settle when everything was just being presented to me. I moved my eyes down to the bottom of the page where the ‘recommendation’ part was, and saw the ‘Separation’ box ticked.  That confirmed my suspicion.  I didn’t even bother to listen to the metrics I supposedly didn’t hit (CSAT, QA, Adherance).

In about 10 minutes, I have signed my separation papers, been advised that I will no longer report for work starting immediately and that I am to surrender all company property issued to me.  My manager escorted me to my locker where she took possession of my headset and company badge, before leading me to the elevators.  That was it.  Done.

Funny thing is, she had the nerve to tell me to ‘keep in touch’.  May God forgive me, but I couldn’t help but laugh when she said that.  I even told her I had bought my outfit for the whole year-end party everyone was urged to go to.

And this is a major US company I work for offshore. They send us email blasts of the revenues they rake in for the last quarter/year, yet, somehow, I feel like our center was cutting costs.  I’d like to think I have served the company well by serving its millions of customers with the best customer service I can provide, despite the current status of US economy and the miserable working environment I had to work in daily.

As much as I’d like to say ‘it’s been great’, I can’t.  I’d be lying if I did. I did enjoy some part of it. I met some good friends. I know now why I had avoided applying for the company before when they first opened its doors to Cebuanos.

Bummer, I had plans to quit, but not till next year.  They had to hold on to my pay and have to wait for 45 days till they ‘clear’ me. I’ll have to get a new job fast.  Or work on some online jobs for now.  Back to square one it is.

Super QA

I work for the Manila corporate office of a global hotel brand.  I started out in the company as one of their Reservations Agent, and after 2 years, moved up to become one of the Quality Analysts.

As a Quality Analyst (QA), I go through the hundreds, sometimes, thousands of calls that go to any one of our six Reservations Offices in the world.  We have a Reservations Office each in London, UK; Charleston, SC; Salt Lake City, UT; Manila, Phils; Baguio City, Phils; and Sydney, Australia.  

Did I bore you yet?  Hahahaha!  It may sound boring, but we actually have a lot of fun in between.  Especially when we encounter some bloopers in the calls we evaluate.  I’ll be sure to post some of them here!

Lunch time is always fun time for us too.  This is actually the only time we get to talk to each other after staring at the computer.  Conversations can range from relationships, movies, recent episode of a drama, news, and our favorite and hated actor or actress.  For the last topic, we actually have one least favorite actress in mind: Marian Rivera!  Hahahahaha!  *Peace!

So why Super QA?  Well, it started in December.  My friend, Fish (short for Mrs. Fisher), came up with the idea of making a collage of superhero characters and replace the faces with OUR pictures.  The result?  It was HILARIOUS!  Every time we need a good laugh, we just look at the picture.  Thus, the tag Super QA.  Our supervisor, who was also in the picture, couldn’t get over the picture for days!  When she saw either one of us, she couldn’t help but smile.  

But we are also Super QA because our job is tough, but we always deliver great results every time.