I showed up for my first shift at NDC before 3:30am on January 10th, 2000. I was about 10 minutes early. I hadn't received my badge yet, but was able to get in by tailgating another employee. However, once I got in, I realized I left a lot of stuff I needed in the car. I went back out, but I wasn't lucky enough to catch an employee to tailgate with. There was a doorbell I was supposed to ring. It took about five minutes for someone to show up and let me in. I almost clocked in late.
I found a supervisor and told him it was my first day. His name was Mr. M. Even though he started his shift about the same time as me, he was not going to be my supervisor. My supervisor was Mr. O, who wouldn't be in until 7am. (And honestly, that did not make sense to me at the time. Why would they assign me to a supervisor I wouldn't see for nearly half my shift?).
Mr. M gave me my password so I could log in and start taking calls. He also gave me my break and lunch schedule. I was told I could sit at any open cubicle. I looked around for one with an ergonomic keyboard since Thoz had warned me about getting carpal tunnel syndrome. This was the first time I had worked with such a keyboard. It took a little getting used to. I logged in and the first thing I knew, I had a call on my screen. I quickly forgot everything I had learned in the previous week. It took me a moment to regain myself and figure out what to do. I was able to take the message and dispatch it. As soon as that call was over, I got another call and dispatched another message. They had a lot of people start their shifts at 3:30am because that's when calls from the East Coast started to roll in.
I basically did my job without interacting with anyone else there at the call center. It was so strange to be somewhere with about 200 people and no one to talk to. Looking at my break and lunch schedule, I found I didn't like how it was set up. I took my first break at 5:15am, my 30 minute lunch at 7:15am and my last break at 10:45am. This meant I had to work more than four hours after my lunch and two hours after my last break. I decided to skirt this a bit by taking those about seven minutes later than I was assigned. They'd already screwed me out of a decent shift, I wasn't going to let them do it to me with my break schedule. (However, having worked in supervisory positions in which I was in charge of overseeing breaks and lunches, I do understand why my schedule was set up like that. If everyone coming in at 3:30am takes their breaks and lunches at the same time, it messes up the call volume.)
One of the things I noticed later on during the day was that no lunch truck appeared here like it did at the Balboa Ave. location. There wasn't any room in the parking lot. At any rate, this wasn't going to do me any good since my lunch was scheduled for 7:15am. I doubt any food trucks would show up that early.
Sometime after my lunch, a man came to my cubicle. He was Filipino and appeared to be around 25 years old. He introduced himself as Mr. O, my supervisor. (I was 35 at the time.) He asked me to go with him. We went around the call center and he got two other agents in the same manner, a man and a woman. We went into a conference room. He brought us all together to present us with our new hire packets. The packets went into detail about the company policies, including attendance. Included in the packet was a special offer to join 24 Hr. Fitness. NDC would pay the initiation fee. I just had to pay the $19 a month membership fee. And if we stopped working for NDC, the membership would continue as long as we paid the monthly fee.
One of the bad things about NDC was that you had to be employed there full time for six months before you could start receiving benefits. You also had to work at least 1,000 hours before you could start having money taken out for a 401(k) retirement plan. I didn't like that I was going to have to wait so long for health insurance, but I figured it would be worth sticking it out.
Mr. O was my first real exposure to one particular aspect Filipino culture. Anytime we were talking about work-related issues, he would call me "sir." This was rather startling to me. (Even though I was 35, I still rarely had anyone address me like that.) I figured this was how they address all those they presumed were older than them. (In my future dealings with Filipinos, this actually turned out to be the case.) But I wasn't the only employee put off by it. A co-worker about my age complained about it. "I want to say, 'Quit calling me Sir! You're MY boss!'"
At 12pm, it was time for me to go home. I clocked out, left work, drove home and crashed. I didn't know if I would get used to this.
It turns out I would. The best thing about this is that after 18 years, I am still a member of 24 Hr. Fitness. And I still only pay $19 a month.
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