More Yuppies Eyeing Call Center Jobs

By Fernan J. Angeles

AS timely as today revolutionary ideas, even dreams of children aged below 12 have shown tremendous, radical changes on the mindset of their siblings shift from their aspiring to become either a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, a professional nurse, a an athlete, a senator, a priest or a cop, at that.

While there are still a handful of children who’d opt for a degree from a reputable university. Most of us would have been satisfied and half fulfilled given a computer station inside an office located perhaps in a financial district — not as CEO of a publicly listed firm but as a call center agent of a relatively new, but attractively earning company.

Why not? Imagine an office job — it may not sound even half of what one would have dream of,, but has seen so many other young urban professionals grow literally and financially big at that. “Big” as in these call center firms are offering twice as much as the minimum pay for a start. It may even go beyond another fold or twice as much the starting salary if one gets to be blessed with more markers, connoting an added pay on top of their salary as this type of job at times require being verbally convincing to make a sign for ”an expensive package that you just bragged about”, or make him buy of something which he hasn’t even seen or hold on to.

Interestingly, the sprawling number of call centers in the country and elsewhere has shown what could best be described as a phenomenal hit at a time when most of the world is suffering from recession. But while these call centers are surprisingly doing good business and in return helps in trimming down local unemployment rate and at the same time help the government through the taxes that is directly or indirectly earned from its operations, the government has every reason to be alarmed with another social abnormality which may adversely affect all other socio- economic and political set up.

Imagine a strategically situated city that is described as a top local revenue earner because of the sprawling call center business that occupies most of the leased office spaces of tall buildings and skyscrapers. Everything seems normal as the financial district has remained busy as people in batches of thousands come to work and go home in three shifts. The volume of people at the city’s center of growth has practically involved almost everybody, unmindful of the balance that we have to keep.

Unmindful to an extent that even an English teacher would be willing to skip classes if only to guarantee her a slot in an office as a call center agent. What about the nurses who finds it hard to pass their licensure tests — they too would have been more favorable to the idea of working as a call center agent receiving a salary that is decently higher than that of jobs related to what their college degree courses could offer.

And soon enough, even the cops, non-Bar passers, the journalists, health professionals, social workers and other allied fields of expertise, would go similar way.

And even before we come to realize it, their kids could be skipping classes because their English teacher just joined the elite team of handsomely-paid cal center agents. And nobody seemed interested to fill the slot. An almost similar scenario could take place in a hospital where inside an operating room you’d find two people — the doctor who’ll do operations and the patient. No more nurses to assist doc. They’re all out there on the graveyard shift of a call center firm relating to clients from elsewhere.

Some sort of gap has also to be filled up in other allied professions, where a significant number from among them opted to hop in to the hottest job of the modern times.

Unless steps are taken to address concerns which may rationalize the salary-aspect that separates the call center agents from other allied services and professions, chances are we’d run out of teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, among the others whose role in the daily city life prove too significant to let go of.

In what appears to be an imbalance, it is imperative that a study be made on how to rationalize the gains of the call center industry if only to allow the other alleviated labors to move up.*