Career, Money, Designation, Roles and All that Drama !!!!!!!!!!!

I have arrived; the chase for money is over. Not that I have hit a black hole in my current role, career or I have called it shots on what am doing, but After climbing the ladder so fast and reaching the top, I now feel that the ladder was against the wrong wall.

Money was the criteria, dragged into a non typical Indian middle class circumstance, especially in an orthodox Brahmin family, were walking out of the house without an engineering grad is a crime, career was by force and not by choice. With enough brains and marks to support, groping in the dark for the next step ahead. With little money and lots of commitments, with lots of pride and lack of prejudice, with a brittle family and a brave heart, I wanted a job that could help me study and give me a push. Was the first offer letter that I got “my choice”, was that moment of Joy, that took me to Chennai a mere flash in the pan, On the contrary if that moment wasn’t there would I ever be blogging, flying from Jaipur – Chennai , business class.

“Money is not everything “, the statement never made sense to me, at 19 with looming financial problems and debts, for me money was the problem solver, the divine agent, the fix. I decided to give it a chase, to take shortcuts, to get what I wanted, my divine agent. Overtime, Shifts, Health was always regarded as excuses of spoiled brats. Employee relation, Job satisfaction, Work Culture was terms that never clicked, the divine agent kept me going. Like a log of wood in water, like a kite without direction I chased pay cheques. “I am a pay cheque player “. Does money give you a choice, after an endless chase, do you actually get to make a choice. Now that’s a question that needs to be answered, for all the youngsters out there, the answer is might be it does, but the real answer would be “chase a career you like and money will chase you”.

Not that I own a Merc or a three bedroom apartment, Not that I fly business class every day, Not that I dine at the Taj or Leela but my chase for whatever I wanted is over. A home in my village, an address which I never had for 23 years, three time food with no tensions of debt and collection agents, Lee, Levis and Nike to wear, A cute girl to hang out with, that’s all I wanted to do with money. To watch a cricket match without being forced to switch channels by a step mother, to go and watch a movie first day first show, to wear 5 different dresses a week, I always had to fight for the simplest of things in life, and fight became a part of life.

Today, I realize that I can go far and beyond, tearing apart the blanket of money, breaking the shackles of growth and designations. Not that I forgot where I walked in from, but that I realize life is much more than money and designation, that I realize that work is life and not a part of life. When 60 % of ones life is spend at work, the choice of the career must be as important as the choice of a partner. That a Pay Cheque is worth until the 5th of the month, until the “Milkwalla” is paid, the cable and telephone bills are cleared, the rent and food is taken care and when all this drama is over, you have with you, around you and within you, the work that you do, the people who surround you and the inner satisfaction it gives you. I will search, get where I want, as I have the luxury of thought, the power of choice, though I had to fight to get to the race, I will still run the race with all the heart, as in Jerry Maguire “I am all heart Mother Fucker!!!!!!”.

Handle Time Reduction !!!!!!

For all you folks, Who are convinced about the fact that a BPO job is just about talking English, Wearing Denim and having fun, Let this post be an eye opener. A tech support job for the North American segment, is a tough as being a US envoy for India - Pakistan Dialogues, Especially if you are supporting a product which is a proclaimed loser in the market.

Handle time or Time to Resolve is a metric in any tech support centre, there are processes where handle time is the only metric. Customer yelling at the top of his voice, Operations team poking you every five minutes to finish the call, SME giving you suggestions ( which would have been tried in another OS which he supported ), Team leader showing his face as if you are doing a crime by extending the call, The tech support agent is definitely on a sticky wicket.

Now the million dollar question comes up inside the conference room. How do we reduce the handle time ??????. Here we go, speculations, Half cooked suggestions, Assumptions, Everything other than a solution pops in. People from Manufacturing Industry ( Six Sigma Experts ) would walk in with Laptops and Slides, with projects run on highly unstable processes, Will claim that its cause of high hold time, Lack of on call documentation, Less tenure that the AHT is high. ( As if we don't know.) The senior manager who would have walked in with a Hotel Background who has never handled a tech support call or would never understand the technicalities will pass on sermons about reducing the handle time. The operations team who really know what has to be done, either would not be listened to or would never be consulted about the problem.

Ideas must move from the floor to the conference room and decisions from the conference room to the floor. Here Ideas, Solutions and Decisions, everything is done within the four walls. What I would say with my tenure is , " Hire the right people ". Hiring a undergrad for a high end tech support process is like asking IM Vijayan to play in EPL. Train them right, don't hire them for a Credit Card selling process and then pull them into tech support cause they speak well. Communication skills are good , but in a tech support environment the guy must talk to the customer about technicalities not about the last move he watched or the date with his Girl Friend. Retain people, Loosing people every six months will leave your Handle time problem Unaddressed. Train people on technicalities, not just on the product ie If your an ISP train him on networking basics, not just " Ping " " Ipconfig " and "Power cycle ". Teach them fishing, don't give them a fish to eat. Listen to their calls, Increase the sampling plan initially, Let the quality team not be the " Transaction Monitoring Team ", Let them know what the product is, Let them be capable of giving inputs on the product as well. Let the on floor training be done by agents on calls, Train them on Top Call Generators, Let them try the steps they ask the customer to do.

Let's not push AHT to the agents, Let's push probing skills, Let's push typing speed, Let's talk about technicalities, Let's not give them scripts, Instead lets give them scenarios, Lets talk about tools and their usage, Lets empower them to get there rather use our power and drag them there !!!!!!!!!

Just for Dada, A real Leader,Motivator, Maker of the modern Indian Cricket team.

Looking at dada walking out from the stadium, I could see my youth, my energy, my passion for the game cricket walking away . Tears rolling down my cheeks, Heart pounding to new heights, I knew this moment is the end of my Era in cricket, All the greats I worshiped are walking off one by one. Dada an emotional being will be the most inspring of captains Indian cricket has ever produced. Not just for the fact that he was the most succesfull but for the fact that he dared to experiment, Fearlessly backed the new kids, Sopke what his heart said and Led the team from the front. Who would dare remove his shirt and swing at the lords, uttering words which conventional India would take another deacde to utter. Dada made success more coluorfull and memorable than any other captain, He pumped in emotion into the viens of the young Indian team, With fire in the belly and a heart filled with emotion Dada created a brand new team which feared less about clinging on to the team, which feared less about the oposition they played, the venue the game was played. Dada brought in moments that had an attitude, that murmured somewhere at the background that " We have arrived, the new face of India ". He gave the message loud and clear that the new band is Outspoken, Plays the game with directions of the heart and will not compromise when success is the factor. When Australia crated " Rouges ", Dada create a bunch of heroes who are rouges when it comes to dealing with rouges.

Dada is a classical example of a leader, Every leader must be emotional about what he does, Must support a cause and back people he belives in. Being emotional, people say is Idiotic. Any job thats getting done well, isnt getting done well NOT cause of the knowledge, expertise or a process laid. It gets done because the people who does the job are involved in it. They feel that thier role is important and thier leader cares. People who are well led are well led cause the leader belives in the cause and once you belive in winning for your country, removing a shirt would be the least you can do, when your team chases 300+. Dada has brought joy into our Lives, has made us cry, has made us belive that come backs are not easy but definitely possible. The image of Dada walikng into a Dusty Paddy Field, for a Ranji match ( With 7000+ runs in tests and 10000+ in one days ) makes me feel ashamed about the fact that I crib when am made to do a Managers Job were in am designated to do something else. Form is Temporary, Class permenant, Dada was classy on the filed, off the field and as always he will remain the prince not only of Calcutta but of modern Day Indian Cricket. Good Luck Dada, Hope we all see more of you soon !!!!!!!!

At 24 I would have made fun of Gavaskar, Shasthri or Srikanth, whom my father loved. To my kids :- Dare utter a word about this man I will have to make you join a BPO !!!!!!!!

Jokes that blew up ma Mind !!!!!

Americans, I would say are a bunch of sweet hearts, they arent arrogant at all about thier ignorance. They would yell at you, abuse you, take you for a ride but son; the moment they know that thier problem is getting resolved you know what, they would say
"Honey,Son,Sweetheart "( Conditions on call apply) Its not against you, Its against Micheal Dell, Its against Bill Gates or Its cause I lost my temper which I shouldnt have.I would define americans as a bunch of people who would apologize if they did something wrong, appreciate you for the smallest thing on earth that you did for them, Screw your happiness if you play around with them.They are far better than our British comrades who are Sarcastic, Rude and at times are excruciatingly arrogant about thier ignorance. Another big thing about the Bitish is that they still belive that they rule the world and every word of english that we utter is taxable under thier law.
I would quote some of my funny experiences ; The first one is about our very own Brit who does want help but feels that asking help from a brown guy doesnt suit his stature. As usual our hero calls up for a high end technical issue about changing a scrensaver and for the initial question asked, comes the reply " You know what, I am not the usual customer you talk to. I just forgot how to do this particular thing, otherwise am a techie. Just tell me what to do and I will do it ". The tone and the rigidness of the voice gave me a feel that yeah this guy might be a programmer and might be he never does all these silly things. After the initial set back I decided to go forward and ask him to " right click "on his computer, You know what, off comes the next question from our Charles Babbage version 6.2 , " I am a left hander what should I do ".

The above one shows how much can a tech support guy get tortured when he deals with these heroes who never admit that sun has started setting in thier empire. An american by the by is really cool, he would easily come up with an issue that his coffee tray isnt working anymore , or he would say that the coffe tray doesnt come out any more. The support agent would ask wether he received the coffee tray along with the computer or is it a part of the computer and the customer would say a yes. Then begins the search of the millenium; google is of no help, Internal tech docs doesnt say a word about a coffee tray, sales team says that no complimentary items other than printers, memory cards and scanners have been shipped. The agent runs in search of his Subject Matter Expert who hasnt come back form his 90 minute smoke break, Team Leader who doesnt know a thing about the technicalities of the product ( He is a people manager ) and also asks his team mates who would laugh at his fate. At last the agent would get back to the customer and asks how does he get the coffe tray usually and our beloved customer says " It comes out from the tower not from the TV". Agent understands that the coffee tray is attached to the CPU, the next question brings into picture that the coffee tray comes out from the top part of the tower and a light glows when the button is pressed to take it out. Agent would ask whats written there and here ends the search of the millenium " Samsung CD-RW ". The customer after understanding that the coffee tray is CD Drive apologizes for the inconvinience and you know what we say to those customers " Happy Realization "

" Quality of life "

"QOL" Quality of life must be a new term for most us, but a term that must turn heads around.The term must bring in a lot of sense for our crowd who earns a substantial income but rarely finds a way to spend it the right way. Whats quality of life when you don't sleep more than 6 hours a day, whats life when a Sunday evening is spent with an American, making him dance to the tune of right click and left click, whats life when rendezvous with food is an accident and good food a miracle. These are the questions that usually comes up when we discuss the much hyped,americanized BPO lifestyle which Indian society is still finding hard to digest.

Are we really struggling, Is it that bad ???? I would say a big blatant " NO ". We are enjoying our life, having a Gala time. Here are some generic statements that are made : They say the industry would shut down and the career is insecure, we ask then what career is secure. The job is monotonous and you would get fed up soon, If you don't reinvent yourself everyday any job is monotonous, May be Beckham or Sachin might have a different version. Call center is about picking calls and going home, We have seen the best of the talent loosing faith after their initial call. Night shifts aren't safe for girls, as if in the day light they receive appreciable treatment.

Some facts that make sense are : Night shift cuts of your social life, to a huge extend yes. Health issues would be there for people who don't take care of themselves.Your market value for loans, marriages and credit cards goes down. High probability of receiving step motherly treatment from your own family if you have a sibling who works for an IT company.Society again the judge in the case of every Indian; gives a verdict that the job is temporary and never be loyal to it.

Certain funny instances, Major one happens after you introduce yourself as a manager in an MNC, often we would use terms such as Process re engineering, Critical support team, Tier three support etc for an impact and at the end your fathers colleague would end up asking in a tone which would receive a Nobel for sarcasm " Oh that Call Centraaaaa ". Another incident which I would like to quote is about the security of female employees. Certain companies ask the male employee to take the last drop after ensuring that every female employee reaches her home safe. Poor guy would see his mom standing in front of the home waving her hand but cant stop because of the " Huge Responsibility " on his shoulders.One of my friends had to spend almost an hour and half extra everyday to ensure the safety of his colleagues, annoyed one day he asked the transport team to send a security guard. Transport head in front of fifty odd employees started a lecture on brotherhood, team work, social responsibility etc which ended with this million dollar question " After I drop all the female employees , when am alone in the cab and If the driver turns out to be a Gay do you have a provision to protect my a#$% , or it doesn't matter at all ha ???????