I got my first shot at taking live calls today. it was, as I thought it would be, disaster. I was so nervous I forgot to attach my headset in the avaya before I logged in. something, that’s beyond stupid. By the time the first call came in, gazillions of seconds have passed before I even got to verify the caller’s listing. the succeeding calls didn’t progress either. I was in so much panic I connected one lady in mid-sentence, another, I dropped without even looking for her listing, the last one a total dead air. I swear. for a moment it felt like i lost all sense of comprehension. i was looking at the keyboard and it didn't make sense to me. it had a function somehow but it didn't register in my head! you know those fantasy sequences in ally mcbeal when suddenly her head will be cut of or sees herself hurled off a truck into a garbage dumpster? that was how i felt. exactly. my trainor on the other hand, has this to say: "for someone who's taking live calls for the first time, you're good. you sound really composed and calm. there's improvement in your tone. you sound more confident now. you just need to polish your listening skills. you just need a lot of practice." it's either she barged in on a wrong csr or she's just really deaf. but there's a catch there. and most probably it would end like this: " yeah, so the next time you'll know what you're doing."


the good thing about it is that the activity is still part of the training so it's not really a demerit in our case. but next week for the ojt, there's no room for mistake. especially when QA is monitoring your every word, every move and every breath. especially when you have to get exactly 100 QA in a week. especially when they expect you to meet the company's average call time of 40 seconds.


im living among bionic customer representatives. i know there's computer chip somewhere.