What really happens when you say, "Let Me Talk to a Supervisor!"

By Erika Donald

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It’s 7:00 a.m. in Pacific Bell’s Internet call center. A scent of dirty socks and day-old pizza hangs in the air. Agents log into their phones, boot up their computers. The large cube-divided room is dimly lit, cozy like a bar, or maybe a funeral parlor. This early there’s time to surf the Web, e-mail a friend, tear open a package of Pop Tarts and relish the quiet. Across the aisle from me Rick arranges the plastic toy men on the top off his monitor. Behind me Justin plays FreeCell. Latrice paints her nails and blows on them. Tinny laughter from a portable radio at her desk makes her smile and shake her head.

In the middle of the room sits the Hotcube. The Hotcubist today is George. It’s his job to monitor our calls, watch our times, listen in if necessary, and write us up. Stay on a call longer than thirty minutes and your name goes into a log. Sit in Wrap (the time between calls) for longer than three minutes, your name goes in a log. Take a Health break for longer than five minutes, your name goes in a log. Leave your desk without an appropriate code. Logged.

I started working at the call center in downtown San Francisco in February 1999, one of an incoming class of about 25. Twenty months later I look around at the hundred or so faces, and I don’t recognize anyone from my class. Most quit in the first three months. In April a brand-new class of forty was hired and thrown onto the phones. Another class in June.

It’s like how I imagine war to be. People just disappear. You simply don’t see them anymore. Hotcube got to them. They panic on a call. Take a Health break and walk out the front door and don’t come back. When the crew thins out, a new crop of agents is recruited and given two weeks basic training (Monday–Windows, Tuesday–Mac, Thursday–NT) and off they go.

Brian sits across the cube from me. He’s 23, works at a Safeway in Oakland on the weekends and commutes from Livermore. Other agents BART in from Berkeley, El Cerrito, Walnut Creek, Concord. Another gets up at 4:00 a.m. and drives from Tracy. I’m one of the few who lives in San Francisco. I keep my ten-minute commute time to myself. But soon all this will change when the center relocates to San Ramon. I’ve heard stories about the new location: lots of parking, lots of parking, lots of parking. Maybe it’ll happen in October, maybe January. An internal e-mail regarding the move was sent out last week, with a helpful link to the Employment Development Department.

Brian takes calls with his head on the desktop and his eyes closed. "Click on Edit, select Preferences, click on Servers," he mumbles. Last week we didn’t know one another. We sat on opposite sides of the center. This week, for some reason, our seat assignments were changed. Brian thinks we’ve been moved closer to Hotcube. He thinks we’re being monitored. He could be right. Or he could be paranoid.

When I started, I thought I could tell when I was being monitored. I’d hear a click as the call was transferred. Or I’d hear a slight echo on the line. Or a buzzing. Or sometimes, the question was so easy I suspected the call was a fake and I was being tested. Please, I’d pray, let the question be really easy. Don’t ask a Mac question. I would lift my head during the call and look around the room. It’s him, I’d think. He’s monitoring me. Or him. Or her.

The phone rings–the first of about thirty calls in the next eight hours. As a second-tier agent, I take calls from first-tier agents. They’re the point men, the grunts. They take the bullets. They’re mostly from small towns in the South. Polite as can be even if they don’t know much.

This one’s voice shakes. I bet she’s wondering if she’s being recorded. "I have this customer who demands to speak to a supervisor. Can I please transfer him to you? He won’t speak to me anymore. He’s all mad, calling me stupid," she says hurriedly.

She’s breathing heavily. I know I could grill her about the trouble-shooting steps she’s taken, run through the standard check list (check the cables, check the settings, rip TCP/ IP) and then shove her back to the customer. But I can hear the panic in her voice. I remember how it feels, calling for help and getting brushed off. "Go ahead," I tell her. "Transfer him."

"Thank you so much," she says, her voice very fast like a prisoner suddenly freed. I think: she’s not gonna last much longer.

While she transfers the call I take a breath and prepare myself. It’s like the moment before telling your parents that you’ve smashed their car. Or the two minutes it takes for a cop to walk up to your car window and ask for your license. There’s no getting around it: it’s going to be ugly. Brian taps me on the shoulder and points to his phone. He’s entered the number 55 into the display screen–an unknown idle code.

"Hotcube will see you," I warn him. Hotcube sees everyone, knows every code you’re in. When you’re not in a valid code, your inside line rings immediately. It’s Hotcube calling to find out what you’re up to.

"No," he says. "I tested it. They can’t see me." I think he’s wrong but if he’s right I wouldn’t mind using the code just to exhale every now and then without being monitored.

Finally, the customer is transferred to me. "Are you a supervisor?" he demands instantly. Since the beginning of the month, everyone in the call center has been transformed into a supervisor. Brian sleeping at his desk is now a supervisor. Ian with purple hair gelled into points is a supervisor. Ron who begged not to be made a supervisor is a supervisor. I am hoping next month, whoever decided to make us all supervisors will make us CEOs.

"Yes, I am a supervisor."

"At last," he sighs. I feel sorry for him: he thinks he’s reached someone in authority. He’s explains that he’s had a red sync light on his DSL modem (indicating a line problem) for two months. He has had no service, yet he’s been billed without interruption. It’s really a phone line issue. I get calls like this at least twenty times a day. Basically there’s nothing we can do. "I can escalate the case for you if you like, but it’s usually more effective if you call our Plant Control Offices directly." We’ve been told to tell customers to call directly. Better they wait on hold than one of us.

If we escalate the case, it’ll take about two weeks before the telephone company sends a technician to the customer’s premises. Ideally, the customer will be informed that the technician has been dispatched. Ideally, the customer will be home when the technician arrives. "I can arrange to have a technician dispatched to your house," I offer. Dispatched: it has a nice, speedy ring to it. Ambulances and fire trucks are dispatched.

"I’ve already had one of your so-called technicians out here!" he blurts. "He didn’t know his rear-end from his navel. He was here so long he fell asleep on my couch! Now I want to know what you–YOU–are going to do about this right now."

What can I do? Put him on hold.

I glance up at the reader board to check the number of calls waiting and the longest wait time. When the wait time exceeds five minutes the number turns from amber to red. After that, the numbers start to flash. When a router goes down, the board lights up like a marquee.

Perhaps he’s not mapped correctly on the telco side. I call our Network Data Operations Processing. "I need to escalate a case to see if a customer is mapped correctly," I say.

"You need to call the tech center," she tells me.

"I’m calling from the tech center," I answer.

"Oh, then you need to go through PCO."

"I’ve gone through the PCO," I persist.

"I’m sorry. I don’t have the authority to transfer you," she insists.

"Let me speak to your supervisor," I demand instantly.

"Hold on," she says. I imagine her knocking on a supervisor’s office door. I imagine a man with a tie following her to her phone. She’s probably passing me over to someone just like me.

The theme song from Titanic plays. Sting sings. I check my e-mail. Celine sings. The hold light to my customer flashes.

I eye the Hotcubist. He eyes me. The call is going too long. My hand hovers over the call disconnect button. One touch to the release button, and my average call times will improve. I think of what Kevin used to tell me when I first started. An ex-con with tattoos up his arm and a talent for finding the foulest Web sites, he gave me the best advice. "Remember this," he said. "There’s a support boundary in every call, and it’s your job to find it." What this means is that often we provide the appearance of technical support rather than support itself.

Some boundaries are obvious: Internet Explorer, Outlook, UNIX, personal home pages. We don’t touch them. But Kevin, like a pig searching for truffles, would dig down deep and bring up the most priceless delicacies. "I’m sorry, sir. We only support the 16650 UART chip." Unfortunately I can’t play a support boundary card in this case.

Hotcube calls me on the inside line. "Long call."

I check my phone clock that times each call. It’s showing twenty minutes. "I’m on hold with NDPSC," I inform him.

"Sorry, no outside calls right now. We’re getting hit bad." A high-pitched beeping repeats overhead as a message slowly moves across the board. "PLEASANTON DOWN. WATCH YOUR CALL TIMES!!"

The director of the call center gets up out of his seat and marches over to the Hotcube. He’s doing what all directors do when something goes down. He towers over the Hotcubist and stares up to the reader board. While the Hotcubist tries to shuffle agents–putting them in one queue, taking them out of another–the director barks commands. "What’s Watkins doing? Get him out of Wrap." "Tell Jones her break is over." "Flanagan’s in Idle for three minutes."

Poor Hotcube. If the numbers don’t improve quickly, he’s done for. No more cushy job, back to trenches like the rest of us. He’s perspiring as if it’s his fault a router went down.

"Where’s Doyle?" the director demands, looking over at Brian’s empty desk.

Brian’s manager walks over to investigate. I suspect Brian is done for also. Meanwhile my hold button blinks. I will have to get my caller’s number and phone him back. I hit the hold button to return to the customer. The wonderfully joyous sound of dead air greets my ears. He’s hung up. I stand up, stretch, try to let the tension flow out of my body.

Hotcube sends an instant message that flashes on my screen: "You’re in Idle–two minutes!!"

"Sorry," I write back. I am sure my name is going into a log.

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