Workplace Scenarios

I work in a call center. Specifically, my job at one is to collect delinquent American debts and demand them to pay over the phone. Everyday, our job is to convince them thay they need to make that payment or else…(altogether now, dear officemates) “the account will fall into another stage of delinquency, which in time can show as a bad debt if payments are not seen on file”.

Me, together with my officemates create our own strategies on how to make them pay. Some work their way through things by fully knowing the system, the process and the proper rebuttals, others work thru the charm in their voice and sound sympathetic with debtors, some work their way by arguing, some by being too nice and charming with debtors, and some master the art of quick dialing and get the luck of conversing with debtors who are willing to pay, and really want to get the account out collections.

Well, that’s the external scenario. It is also the general dilemma of call center debt collectors.

There’s the other kind of dilemma which call center employees, especially operations people experience everyday of their working lives…in their stay at the company as debt collectors, this I call the internal scenarios:


Familiar everyday line of debt collectors: Sana maka collect ako….sana maka close ako ng high balance…sana maka quota ako.

Most familiar question: May payment ka na?

Most wanted activity: Mag petiks at wag mag dial…611 please (waiting for inbounds)



There are three main classification of agents at the production floor: the performers and the average collectors, and lastly the fast dialers

The performers: These are agents who hit quota every month. They are able to attain their personal goals, and at the end of the month are able to attain those commissions which make them rich, or rather more well-off than the average collectors.

The average collectors: These are agents who usually struggle in their attempt to hit quota and have that extra money at the end of the month. They don’t usually hit quota every month, but at times they feel that they are able to attain it, thanks for the help of high balanced accounts and high number of accounts which they are able to close.

The fast dialers: These are agents who have the gift of quickly dialing every account in a pool, in the hope of landing on an account and talking with a debtor that they can convince to pay.




Agents develop their own strategy in the belief that at the end of the shift they can collect. They believe that collecting does not entirely depend on knowing the process and developing that golden voice that convince debtors to pay. Some believe that it is also a matter of luck and having in front of them their own material inspiration that will motivate them to collect; some rely on certain anting anting. Some bring in their lucky coins, their waving golden cats or green frog figurines with a coin placed at their mouths; some rely on having their own (literally) security blankets, or pillows, or stress balls that will energize them after ever call and again have the willing ness to work again and dial; some post pictures of their loved ones at their work stations.



Some agents have developed the ability of looking at the workplace as an episode from a reality show, either Big Brother or Temptation Island.

The workplace seem like a show at Big Brother wherein you will see the closeness of groups of people. They are able to form a great big barkada from it, Some take lunch and break scheds together, either eating or just simply chatting with one another and laugh at one another’s bloopers. At those times they feel bored or sleepy, they create their own:

Music videos: for agents who just feel like listening on their ipods or music phones and simply singing. Not minding other people

Advertisements and scandals: With the help of up-to-date gadgets such as cellphones, they try to create new advertisements for products such as katinkos, or reenact tv commercials such as Rejoice’s Kering-keri and Knorr’s Makulay ang Buhay. Some also create their own scandals made from singing out loud and all out at videoke during one of those team buildings, or scenes from drinking sessions showing “bangag” agents who have gone tipsy.

Others try to simply sleep off the boredom and drowsiness. They are seen at different corners of the production floor, or even under computer stations, a pillow beneath their head, or a blanket wrapped around their body.

The workplace seems as well a scene from Temptation Island. There are agents on the floor who seem to target every cute guy or pretty agent they see. They ask for their name and try to make friends, with dark motives on their sleeves, and that is to get hooked up and have another guy/girl on their flings list. There are some who cannot help but to give in and develop another blooming relationship with another co-agent, eventhough outside the call center environment, they each have their own girlfriends or boyfriends, or worse, spouses. Some see the workplace as an opportunity to get seriously hooked up in their attempt to find their perfect match. Some make diskarte to girls, appearing like a “Mr. Suave” or jologs gigolos. Some attempt to fill the void of their unfulfilled childhood romance, develop crushes, and try to send pa cute and pa tweetums signals to somebody they like.



All in all, these are some of the workplace scenarios seen in a call center, specifically, the call center I’m in. On the one hand, I just hope it gave you a picture of what we are like at our own workplace. It’s up to you whether you find us all enjoyable, amusing, or simply socially-wild or whacky groups of people, trying to make our own big moolahs and wait for our high or fair enough pay checks at the end of the month.

On the other hand, I guess, our everyday habits, our everyday scenarios make us feel at ease, and de stress us from taking all the bad mouths and bad arguments and phone hung ups we get from careless, rude Americans. Fair enough, right?