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Been sitting here for two and a half hours. Not a single call. I brought along a rubics cube today. I've solved it 7 times. Thats 3 more than I have done my entire life.
And all the while, I'm on clock, getting paid 8.50 an hour to do this.
I think I'll work over time this week.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Strange, rubix cubes just hit it big in all my classes. One kid in my chemistry class can solve it in like, 3 minutes. It's insane. *runs off to go find rubix cube*
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I'm pretty sure I could still solve one in five minutes or less, if it turns well. Some cubes get stuck or come apart when they're being moved too fast (like my keychain one, for example). After a bit of practice, I could probably get back down to solving within three minutes. But hey, I'm a puzzle freak and math junkie, so they were pretty much designed for me.
You think that $8.50/hr for solving them is available for telecommuters, because if so, tell me where to forward a résumé, ok? I could do that while watching Mooselet....
posted
You're lucky your scheduling is done so inefficiently. Our call volume is anticipated, so we're scheduled such that we rarely have a period of more than two minutes between calls.
Of course, I get paid more.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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My brother can solve them in about a minute or so, a little more. I usually take around 5 or so. Some people memorize all these patterns and algorithms and can average under 20 seconds over several tries. It's mad.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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106 calls @ 2:06/call (gotta love the log em and dump em mentality that they've got here) 1:17:35 in available (idle is used as break time around here)
Last week, I had 6:22:57 of available time. That was the life...
T, you should come work for Safeway. Starting in the tech support center is ~$15/hr.
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I want to work for safeway! I only make $9.25, $9.75 after 90 days. And I bet you get your schedules more than 3 days in advance.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yeah, we get our schedules each week. The only people that ever have problems with their schedules is the temps, and that's mainly because management shuffles them around to try to find a good spot for them to cover.
Yeah, the pay at Safeway is good, but we hire lots of people that will make you question your sanity (and our hiring standards).
I'm pretty sure that you don't have to be literate to be a file maintenance clerk, and you definitely don't have to know where you work (our most common problem is that people don't know what building or dept they're in).
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I could never get my head around one either. I was like 11 when they first came out, and then I got one a couple of Christmases ago thinking that now I'm a grown up cognitive science type I should be able to do it. But knowing that it is mainly done through "tricks" kind of ruined it for me.
So have ya'll read the tricks or figured them out yourselves?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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So how many of us on here work Call Centers for Tech Support? T_Smith and slacker? (and me)? Man it is slow on the phones today! Only 22 calls in the last 2 hours (split between the four of us on the phones)....
79 calls answered, avail time of just 39 minutes. We're several people down right now, waiting for some new hires. My avail has been as low as 20 minutes of late, number of calls as high as 109.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I'm in a call center for tech support. SBC DSL. And my own order just completed yesterday, so I'm happy.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I hate having to deal with SBC's phone center. We wait on hold to get hung up on most of the time, and then have to keep repeating that we're Safeway/Dominicks cuz the agents aren't paying attention.
Oh yeah, the voice menu's need to be tinkered with a bit, too.
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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My record number of calls in a day was 175. They were all legit calls (password resets, order checking, etc), but I was working 10 hour days.
The only other person at the company that's beaten me was when our network crashed (someone in SLC was playing with the routers again), and it was just answer, tell them there's nothing that can be done and hang up. He got 233 that day.
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Is it normal SBC you call, or the DSL division?
Heh, I take nothing like that number of call in a day. I bet the record for my call center is no more than 60 in a ten hour day (and most work 8 hours), as we have to do a fair amount of time consuming trouble shooting most calls. Of course, there are usually 80-200 of us out on the floor, so its still a lot of calls.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yes, I absolutely HATE it when network servers crash. The phones instantly light up and they all want to know "how long it will be down" when our own department doesn't even know yet.
Farmgirl (who works internal technical support helpdesk for a large regional bank)
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Actually, my favorite calls are on friday night, around 6pm (our techs go home @ 5pm) from a store that just noticed a problem with their wrapper (they use them in the early mornings, so there's no excuse for not telling us sooner), and they want to know how long it'll be before a tech gets out there.
It gets better when we explain working hours to a store. It's like they think that we sit around 24/7 just waiting for them to call in. Anyways, the callers always get mad at this, and of course they don't want to pay the OT for the tech to come back out that night.
*sigh* I just reminded myself why I don't want to go to work today...
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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<-- Would have liked SBC DSL if they could have actually installed it within two weeks of the order. They conveniently forgot, so I conveniently cancelled.
I remember the days of working in Tech Support for an ISP. Yup. Never doing that again. Especially not for a certain company called Alltel. But the pay...oh man, you can get paid well for getting beat up by customers every day.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Sitting here over a hour now with NO calls -- I am SO bored! Reading Frank Peretti and not even sure I like the book. But at least it is something to read....
I solved one once by accident so I don't think it counts. I had tried for hours and then just gave up and was turning it around aimlessly in my hands when I looked down and realized that it would be finished if I turned it just once more. My friend Matt is very talented with these things, though. As in he's actually sent off to the company that makes them to get the special ones with the funny shapes. Last one took him less than hour so now he's waiting for the newest model to come out. Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Now that we're moving some of our support operations to Manila (thank you Safeway for supporting your local economies), I wonder how much the people in Manila get paid?
Unfortunately, asking what someone else makes is a serious no-no (via HR, you can get fired for it), so we'll have to wait and see.
Posts: 851 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Icarus, you only get $18 an hour after ten years?! That's nuts. I get $11 after editing for only two years.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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