My Corporate Job

I've worked in the corporate world for 7 years but in 2020 I made the leap -- a planned exit from corporate life to go all-in on my former side hustle of graphic designing, data entry, lead researcher, and cold caller. Now, this is my full-time hustle - and I love every minute of it. I'd like to share my experiences working in the astonishing call centre industry that I've been with.

A short background.

Before learning all my freelancing skills, I was a full-time worker in the call centre and I have been in different areas of the outsourcing industry - it was my bread and butter. I was determined to get a good-paying job before, so after completing a 4-year course in college, I went to different call centre companies out there to apply for a job. Lucky me, it wasn't that long before I got my first job offer from one of the biggest call centre companies in the Philippines.

“If you want to change something in your life, but you are not doing any movement to make that change happen, that's lunacy. As the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said: “change is the only constant thing.”

I stayed with my first call centre company for six years and three months. All the experiences I've had with the people that I met before were unforgettable. It was not easy though as the first account I've ever handled was one of the most difficult campaigns that even an experienced call centre agent would give up doing shortly. My job was as a technical support representative and the task is to support customers to troubleshoot their internet and networking issues over the phone using a second language I've learned. It was difficult as I expected. To cut the story short - I made it to the operations and started taking live calls eventually. I was doing the same routine for more than two years before I thought of accepting a more challenging job. So, I decided to apply for a position called Quality Assurance Specialist. I am quite familiar with the role as they were always visible on the production floor. As for me, they are the cool support group that comes at an agent workstation to side barge on a live call to make an evaluation of your call performance. I am sure back then that was what I want to become after acquiring enough experience as an agent. Guess what - I became a QA for 2 years.

"Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand."

Skills Level-Up:

Working as a QA has helped me acquire new skills and experiences. I was able to handle QA projects, created data analyses and reports, make use of my creativity, suggested initiatives to improve an existing process, and dealt with clients. I am very thankful to my former Quality Manager, Michelle Giray for trusting me with tasks, sharing her knowledge, and believing in my skills.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

There was an opportunity that came to me after working as a QA for two years. I was hesitant at first to grab it as I know I am not very good at handling people. It was a completely different role. In a QA environment, we share the same goal but mind our own business when we do our tasks to hit our individual targets. To cut to the chase - I applied for a team leader position. Sounds huge to me, but I still decided to give it a try, and hell yeah... I never thought the hiring manager would see the potential in me as a leader.

Team Re-MARK-able!

Handling my first team was a bit challenging. I can't even remember how I was able to keep myself up with the job. I can't deal with my agent's attendance issues at first, I have a very soft heart every time I need to serve corrective actions and written warnings. I was very lenient with my team's excuses and shortcomings. You can say - I don't know how to act as a team leader before.

It was my senior operations manager Conrad De Leon, who helped me along the way. He said that I have to set my mind first that I am a team leader so I can act like one. He taught me how to properly manage my time doing all the responsibilities and learn the processes. Eventually, I adapted to the job and started handling more teams. Later on, I even get asked to receive and handle a difficult employee that other team leaders are refusing to accept because of negative feedback or bad performance history.

I am writing this blog to let other aspiring leaders out there and starting professionals to never stop believing in themselves. Learning is a never-ending process... No matter how many failures you've faced, every experience has a value of learning. You just need to keep moving forward until you achieve your goals. Cheers everyone!