During the first few months I worked at NDC, I would frequently see that they were looking for people to become Lead Dispatch Agents. At first, I wasn't interested. The difference in pay was only 50 cents an hour and you didn't qualify for the bonus. The only advantage was that you didn't have to be on the phones all day long.
But in July of 2000, we got a new operations manager. Her first order of business was to change how the bonuses were determined. They had been tracked by the number of revenue units that each agent produced. However, this had to change because a lot of pager companies were changing their plans to include one price for all messaging. (This should have been a sign that our business model was rapidly changing and would never return to the "good ol' days.") She decreased the Average Handle Time and put some other stipulations into place. I looked at this and figured it was going to be a lot harder for me to make bonus every month. I had started to rely on that income and had just moved into my own apartment. I figured now would be a good time to go for that promotion. The odd thing is that Dispatch Agents were eligible for promotion to LDA after three months of working for NDC, but benefits still didn't kick in until after six months. (But I was already on my path to getting benefits.)
They were looking to promote five new LDAs. The only problem was that there was only one that had a shift with a differential. My current 3:30am shift had a $1.25 an hour differential. The 5am shift offered a $1 differential. This meant that my increase would only be 25 cents an hour for the promotion. I couldn't take any of the other shifts because they didn't offer differentials, meaning the promotion would result in me making less money. That just made no sense to me. (I should add there was a shift with a 75 cent differential, but that would have resulted in me making the same amount. I needed to feel like I was moving upward.)
I submitted my application for the promotion and listed 5am - 1:30pm as my preferred shift. One of the best things about it was that it would be at the Balboa location and I only had to work Monday through Friday. It would be nice to have my weekends off. I figured my chances would be pretty good with this many positions available. Hopefully, everyone else applying worked regular hours without a differential, so any promotion would mean a 50 cent increase to their wages.
I had to interview three times. I met with someone from HR, a Call Center Manager at Chesapeake and the Balboa Manager with the Supervisor I would be supporting. I recalled meeting the Supervisor (whose name is Camd) once before when I worked a holiday and he was on duty. He had to assist me with an issue when I arrived at work that day. I mentioned this to him, but he didn't recall. I remember they asked what I thought made me stand out from the other applicants for the position. I responded by saying I didn't know anyone at Balboa. I would be able to come in and be recognized as authority, instead of someone's buddy who got a promotion.
One of the things I was able to ascertain at the interviews was that I could still work overtime on the phones. Every once in awhile, the scheduling department would have overtime available. I was glad I could use that to supplement my income and likely wouldn't need to rely on the bonuses.
All the interviews went okay from my perspective. I was rather optimistic that I would get the promotion and the shift I wanted. A couple of days later, the Chesapeake Manager I interviewed with called me into his office. He said that I got the promotion and the shift I wanted. The only issue I had was when I would start. Normally, I had the next two days off. He said I could have Wednesday off and report to my new Supervisor on Thursday. I would then work on Saturday and train with the person who used to be my LDA. This was also before Labor Day weekend. I asked if I was supposed to work on Labor Day (since I knew Balboa would be closed that day). He said I didn't because they already had the schedules set for Supervisors and LDAs that day. I wasn't on the schedule. Okay, cool.
He also told me not to tell any of my co-workers that I had gotten the promotion. However, I had to tell Maurd because that meant she was going to have to find someone else to carpool with starting on Sunday. (She already had someone to drive her on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so it wasn't going to be an inconvenience.) I also told her that if she was in a bind to go ahead and call my house and I could give her a ride so that she could get to work on time. Fortunately, she never had to do that.
On Wednesday, I got a call from the Chesapeake Manager. He said that I had previously been scheduled to work the phone on Labor Day, so that meant I had to work that day. I wasn't going to get it off. I was fine with that. We got paid extra on the holidays.
On Thursday, I showed up at Balboa before 5am. Balboa was not a 24-hour call center. They started at 5am and closed at 6pm Monday through Friday. There were a lot of people gathered near the time clock, waiting for 4:53am when they would be able to punch in for the beginning of their shifts. I didn't recognize any of them and they likely didn't realize who I was, either. The time came and everyone punched in their employee numbers. (They could only do this one at a time.) After I punched in, I went over to the Supervisor station and waited for Camd to arrive. He came in a few minutes after everyone else. He was pleased to see me. He started by introducing me to everyone on the team as the new LDA. Everyone seemed happy that Camd had a new LDA because he had gone a few weeks without one dedicated to the team.
He set about showing me what my duties were. These included checking for call outs, looking to see what time the agents clocked in, keeping track of the attendance for each agent, running daily reports, preparing written warnings, setting up the reviews. There was a seemingly endless amount of work to do. After time, I would get adjusted to the schedule and was able to do everything very efficiently, much to the pleasure of Camd.
One great thing was that in January of 2001, the LDA position changed. We were going to be called Assistant Call Center Supervisors, received a lot more pay and a better benefits package. This continued my streak of making more money than my previous job after one year of leaving.
As it turned out, NDC would not have any more promotions available after I received mine (at least for a year). The number of Dispatch Agents was steadily decreasing, we weren't doing as much hiring and Supervisors, LDAs and teams kept getting moved around. I felt sorry for anyone who happened to be waiting for the next round of promotions to apply because it just didn't happen. I considered myself lucky that I applied when I did.
But ultimately, it did cause a big problem for me. I'll get to that in a future post.
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