I(27M) started a call center job less then a month ago and I already wanna quit. It has been a terrible fit. It’s just nonstop verbal abuse from customers. It’s pretty much survival until the weekend then I spent the whole weekend worrying about the start of the work week. I have nothing lined up and I feel like a total failure cause I’ve had a job since I was 16. Not really sure why I’m even posting this, just a vent really. Why do people have to be so rude and entitled

I work in a contact centre with a fairly toxic, high-pressure environment. I'm currently being investigated for potentially failing to follow GDPR verification procedures on certain customer calls.

I've acknowledged that I may have missed verification checks on some occasions, although I haven't been shown the specific calls. Nothing was intentional and my performance has been okay. My line-manager is satisfied with my goals. The manager investigating this is from a completely different department.

I have diagnosed ADHD + an occupational health report, which my employer is aware of. I sometimes struggle when customers become confrontational or pressure me or are abusive to bypass verification. Our procedures also change frequently, and the e-learning modules are quite basic, with little refresher training.

HR initially questioned me about GDPR procedures, possible breaches, customer pressure and my recent sickness absence. They've now sent another detailed questionnaire specifically about my ADHD, how it affects my ability to follow procedures, what reasonable adjustments I receive and whether further Occupational Health input is needed.

I've cooperated fully, acknowledged potential mistakes and requested GDPR refresher training.

Am I at risk of being dismissed? Does HR asking detailed questions about ADHD and reasonable adjustments suggest they're considering support, or could dismissal still be the outcome? I am genuinely very scared at this point.

I'd really appreciate opinions from anyone familiar with UK employment law, HR or GDPR investigations.

Does anyone else have a call center job so demanding there is 0-2 seconds between calls and 1 minute to wrap up but they want you to only take 15-30 seconds? I am losing my absolute mind. I’ve had this job for 2 years and it has almost drove me completely insane. I set appts for different companies and there isn’t even enough time to scratch my nose if I wanted. How to stay sane and has anyone else experienced this?

Is when they ask me for the phone number THEY JUST DIALED.

Dude, you called me. You have the number somehow somewhere. Move the phone away from your jaw and it's probably glowing brightly in front of your goofy face!

I swear some customers just want to play 20 questions and waste my time! I'm just gonna start giving phone numbers to Dominos or Papa John's, I'm so tired of this question. Or maybe I'll put them on hold for 10 minutes while I "look it up". Hot damn, this stupid ass question always gets me heated.

What stupid questions send you through the roof?

I find it hilarious when customers try to force you to do things you clearly can't or aren't authorized to do, using lines like, "Have I called the right place?" just to guilt trip you or make you feel inadequate.

Whenever they ask, "Is this the right place? Should I call somewhere else? I thought this was xyz place," I never give a straight yes or no, i refuse to give them any control, i just repeat what I've told them a million times already, sometimes I might throw in a cheeky, "You might have entered the wrong number, we don't do that here."

They know they called the right number, they just want to push their luck and see if they can get away with it.

Also, their new favorite tactic is, "I'm not sure if you can help me with this, you probably can't, but..." and then they proceed to drop the craziest request ever. If you think I probably can't help, mf, why did you dial my extension?

My job ‘evolved’ and we were told that our new position involved some CC work, like an hour a day or so. Fast forward to a year and it’s full on CC work and the metrics are added gradually. If you are like me and not built for this type of work under these conditions then you must know how I feel daily. My mental health is in the toilet and getting deeper and deeper into crises territory. Taking calls from callers who think they need to give me their entire mental health diagnoses is not helping. I am at my wits end!

Anyone here survive that one? The CR, Seattle or Jamaica location? I did about 14 years there, 12 in QA. Thank God I left 3 years ago!

I honestly don’t even know what to do anymore. I’m living with clinical depression, and my current job in a call center is completely destroying my physical and mental health.

Over the last 5 months, we’ve gone through 4 different trainings, constant schedule shifts, process changes, and management swaps (3 TLs/OMs). On top of that, there’s practically no way to get PTO because of strict team quotas, daily abusive callers, and we are constantly monitored down to the second. You can’t even take basic bathroom breaks without pressure, and everything has to be done fast. and now management is adding forced extra work and mandatory RTO days as "punishment" for my metrics tanking while I was sick.

Every single morning when my alarm goes off, I experience severe anxiety. My entire body freezes up and I physically cannot bring myself to log in or move. I’m terrified out of my mind because I can’t afford to just quit, I need the money to survive but staying is pushing me to the absolute edge. Now, I’ve been out for 2 straight weeks. I can tell my leads are completely frustrated with my reasons, but work has been triggering my episodes so badly.

My metrics just tanked again, and instead of actually helping me, I know they’re going to punish me even more and try to passively drive me to quit.

I feel completely trapped, exhausted, and helpless. Has anyone else been in this exact spot where your body just shuts down from job trauma and depression? How did you survive or get out when you couldn't afford to just walk away?

Right now just waiting for a lot of admin stuff, paper work to go through but everything looks good so far. I only was given about 10 days because I don’t have a diagnosis right now so I’m making an appointment with a therapist to see where I am. And hopefully that can extend my leave and even be in short term disability.
I’m a little nervous about it all but i just need to take it day by day.
I had such a bad headache yesterday, I had gone to work a few hours then literally left. Then I did all this researching and was able to figure it out thankfully. I think the adrenaline really stayed with me cause I had such a hard time sleeping last night I was so anxious. I took a little nap and feeling a little better. I’m just grateful that I finally listen to myself. I think I suppressed a lot things these years working this job, I just want to feel normal again.
Wish me luck everyday, still very nervous.

Ask them to verify their email/Date of birth=impossible

Survey saying 0 is bad and 5 is good=easy

It used to be worse and ive gotten used to it, but i still cant relax and i am short of breath.

The call sound coming in, no warning, no countdown until the phone answers and i have to jump into corporate mode, no way to see my place in the queue. Its a minor jumpscare every single time.

Even when its extremely slow and its a great day, i am on edge because i dont know what ill hear the beep. Its different from other customer facing jobs because there were at least a few seconds while i waited for the customer coming to the counter or approaching their house or smthn. Also, i can never expect if theyre going to be angry automatically. at my old job, the customers were happy to see me. At my current one, these are people going through rough situations, so they arent exactly happy to call me. I get that but it puts me on edge not knowing if the next caller will be normal or someone yelling at me.

My supervisor also had me revise the script bcs it wasnt "natural sounding" enough which threw me off and lowered my metrics a ton so now, i am constantly worried abt remembering the new script. the new script is way more unnatural and awkward also.

It wouldnt be too bad if I had to be perfect when i get a call. With old jobs, a customer came up and expected me to be profssional but also have a pulse. This job, i have to be careful to not yawn if the phone picks up or not to shift in my chair or not to clear my throat or type too audibly anything. Even typing makes me nervous bcs the keyboard that the company gives is loud as hell and i got in trouble for that.

Even on easier days, which are getting fewer and fewer ofc, I feel physically tense bcs i know its coming any second and I have to be perfect every time

Does anybody ever experience this??! It drives me nuts, they will call in, i say my name and company, and then they ask for a call back. Or if it’s about something they’re looking into I have to say I’ll them over with somebody who can talk with them more about it, and then they said that can’t talk right now. Okay. So why did you call me? I get when I’m outbound dialing but WHY when YOU called ME lol

Ok so we all have our own lists of who the worst types of cusotmers are, but honestly even in mine the one i missed was the worst... that is the Sealion...

Sounds badass but these assholes are the biggest pieces of shit you could ever get. For those who don't know Sealins are people who use a tactic call Sealioning: Sealioning is a bad-faith tactic where a person relentlessly demands explanations, definitions, justifications, or proof for basic or already-settled points all while pretending to be completely polite and reasonable, for customers it's usually under the pretense of "I’m just trying to understand".

Their ultimate goal is often to provoke the staff member into a moment of human frustration or snapping, which the sealion will then instantly use as leverage to demand find a loophole they can argue, get free compensation, or getting the employee in trouble knowing full well we can't do SHIT because our idiot QA teams always insist on "you don't know they were bad faith questions" even though it's obvious as hell, and we HAVE to answer their asinine questions over and over because they are "not being abusive"... even though what they are doing is actually emotional abuse and harassment.

They are WORSE than karens or standard abusive asshole because, lets be honst, in one way or another you CAN get rid of them without getting dicked up the ass by some prick QA agent who has no frame of reference... Sealions you can't get rid of them, NOTHING will stop their endless questions.....

They are the literal WORST people....

anyways rant over

Edit: i dont mean rephrasing the SAME question, i mean the asshole who asks a vagueley related and SUPER obvipus question that is still a different question with a different answer... thrn another... then another in some spul suck8ng attempt to find a loophole or ragebait.

I work for a major internet company. Everyone is nice and helpful. I got hired with a handful of others and they are great as well. But the work itself is insufferable.

Getting cussed out on a daily basis, screamed at, hearing them rant about politics, trauma dumping and treating me like their therapist, being told to die and fuck off because the wifi is down and they cant watch YouTube or their PS5 is lagging. My disdain for people has grown. Everytime I leave the house I imagine the people I see as potential callers and it makes me not want to interact with anyone. I won't even get started on the 50,000 stats we have to adhere by.

I am dealing with the loss and grief of my father, a break up, and a very bad roommate situation, and this past Thursday my very first call was a typical karen going off about her wifi being down. She was in an outage and wouldn't accept that answer and started screaming at me and I just lost it. Everything I am going through built up and I jumped up from my desk and started crying. I tried to excuse myself to the bathroom, but unfortunately I was seen by several people including several from management and of course they rushed to me to see what happened. I appreciate all of the support and care and hugs I received after telling them all I have been going through, but the support doesn't make the calls more bearable. And even though they asked, I feel like I trauma dumped on them and greatly over-shared and its left me feeling humiliated and unprofessional.

I feel like a loser because this is the best paying job I have ever had. I just got out of 4 years of retail and thought this was it for me. A new chapter after my streak of bad luck. A desk job with no heavy lifting, no more sore body in the morning, etc. The benefits are amazing and the people once again are lovely, but I just cant do it. If I am not getting cussed out or passive aggressive remarks slung at me, then I am stuck on a 1 hour call with an elder who won't listen and cant work a freaking toaster if I guided them step by step. My anxiety is through the roof. Even if the call is nice I shake. Had a woman start off nice and ended up being one of the meanest calls, so I feel no call is safe now.

The day I broke down, I called my mom and told her I was going to quit and she heavily dissaproved despite everything I told her. Thats the only reason I didnt just drive off that day. But I cant do it anymore. I get one more check and I can cover November's bills, but after that I have nothing. But this job just isn't worth the mental agony on top of everything else. I am going in today to say my goodbyes to my fellow new hire class (wasnt planning on it, but they really held me down when I had my breakdown), and tomorrow I will email HR and resign and then mass apply to jobs. 3 others in my new hire group have already quit, so I am not alone, but it still feels embarrassing that I couldn't tough it out like everyone who stayed.

JUST PAY THE SERVICE FEE.

once it gets to the 20 minute mark and you still haven't figured out how to change your password and you refuse to let me do the change for the fee, i'm going to advise you get someone else to help you IRL and disconnect the call. i don't care.

you not knowing how to register for the online account and taking so long to get your one time codes that the page times out is NOT MY FAULT. you not knowing how to access your emails while you're on the call is NOT MY FAULT.

just pay the damn fee.

We run WhatsApp support with our own team plus a group of outsourced agents. Right now everyone sees every chat and every customer number. We want the outsourced agents to see only the chats in their queue, without the phone number. Billing chats should stay with the in-house team.

How have you set this up? Mainly wondering if department queues are enough or if you need proper role permissions.

UPDATE: for anyone who finds this later, read the comment below about departments, that was basically our problem too. we ended up putting our whatsapp on Wassenger, the manager assigns each chat to a department and only people in that department can see it, so the sensitive customers stay with a few of us while everyone still works off the same number

Basically, I read a lot of stories on here about call centers having a rule that says the staff can’t hang up, or you have to give warnings before disconnecting etc

As a manager, can you override that and let your staff hang up in the knowledge that you’ll protect them from a complaint, or does it come from above and you have to also enforce the rules?

Sorry if it’s a strange question - I’m just intrigued about how much management can change under their discretion, if they have any

My job recently started surveys and I’m having an issue where the call seemingly goes well but I get a low score.

The most recent reason being the customer lead with most of the questions.

I don’t plan on being in this position for long (going back to school) but I absolutely need this job to pay the bills.

Any tips on how to receive better feedback?

Hey everyone! I'm not sure if this is the right sub, but I’m currently working as a Quality Analyst (fresh from this role; I just got promoted from CSR 5 mos ago), and I might be getting promoted soon. I’m trying to understand what this new role would typically be called and what I should expect from it.

For context, our QA department has 5 people handling Customer Service, while three of us handle AI-agent quality and several back-office functions.

I’m one of the two QA analysts working with the AI-agent and back-office side of things. My lead and manager recently told me they’re planning to promote me into a role where I’d be analyzing quality trends and performance across the different functions our QA department supports.

From what I understand, the job would involve working with numbers, tracking quality metrics, identifying trends and recurring issues, and looking at performance across CSR, AI-Agent, and Backoffice.

What I’m not entirely sure about is the actual job title or how this role differs from a regular Quality Analyst position. Would this typically fall under QA Analytics, Quality Performance Analysis, Quality Insights, or something else entirely?

I’d also love to hear from people who have worked in similar roles:

1. What does your day-to-day work actually look like?

2. What tools do you use most? Excel, SQL, Power BI, Tableau, or something else?

3. Is the role more about reporting numbers, or are you also expected to investigate root causes and recommend process improvements?

4. What career paths can this kind of experience lead to? For example, QA Lead, Data Analyst, Business Analyst, or Operations Analyst?

5. If you’ve moved from traditional QA into analytics, what skills would you recommend learning first?

My whole career has revolved around CSR, and I’m just getting started in a QA position. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t really know what to expect yet. I’ve only been given a vague idea of what’s expected, mostly about reporting numbers, trends, and stuff like that. I just want to prepare myself.

Most importantly, I’m only earning $720 a month as a QA (That’s already a bit high in my country), but do you think I should ask for a higher salary?

I've been working in my current call centre job for 2 years. I've never liked the work itself, but the company has actually been great to work for so I stuck it out.

8/10 calls everything goes great, angry and rude customers are genuinely fewer than you might expect. Maybe that makes it more confronting when I do get a bad one, idk.

I feel like I have nothing to complain about, yet I spend every night after work dreading the next morning. As soon as I log in I feel sick and even on the good calls I can feel my body shaking with anxiety.

I'm not over caffeinated or brand new at my job, but I sit here shivering 8 hours a day. I want out, but I feel like I'm throwing away something steady.

How do you cope with the anxiety of talking to people? Having to tell people your real first name and listening to them say it to you?

I'm genuinely grateful for my job, I thought I'd never want to go back to retail or whatever if I found a flexible, work from home option yet here I am daydreaming about it

I don't know how I'm supposed to leave this place.

Mostly, I work Monday to Friday, 8.30AM to 5.00PM. Some shifts start 9AM or 11.30AM.

Most days, I can't do an interview because it always falls on a day that I'm at work and it is only every two weeks where I have a day off during the week.

I miss multiple calls due to being at work and when I have the time to call back, it's past 5PM.

I can't really have a phone interview, because the last time that work found that I was going for an interview, they complained, and having an interview outside, near a busy industrial estate, isn't the best.

I get so many calls a day abt people complaining abt things that were disclosed in the documents we sent over and asking questions that were in the documents we sent over

"This is a hippa violation" you signed a consent form to release information, you just didnt read it "when is my due date?" its in bold letters right under the header of the document "why are you guys never getting any documents?" because you did not read the clearly outlined contact information list and sent it to the noreply email instead

I skim over and dont read shit either but thats on me, i wont harass a call center worker over it bcs i didnt read the document. Dont get mad at me.

If customers alredy know one number, I’d rather keep it that way even if some calls start going through AI.

Wanna know how this works when you already have one main number and both bland and human agents need to use it

I’ve worked with some pretty amazing agents who had mostly OK English. And then I’ve seen agents with almost perfect English (learned at fancy schools and stuff) completely fall apart the second a customer talks fast or goes off script.

So is it better for you to be fluent, or more confident about the wherever the conversation goes?

I’ve been working this job 5 years almost.
I’m at the point where I don’t want to be nice anymore and it probably shows in my voice. I’m tired of the selective hearing, the talking over me, the entitlement.
The job itself is fine but the people are so horrible to have conversations with.
I don’t know if I can do this job anymore or maybe I need s break. I just don’t feel like I’m a person anymore.
I thought about going to therapy years back but my manager then said I just had to figure it out. The hours just didnt line up so I gave up on it.
I really wish I had more time to myself to just feel like me again. I don’t know if that means fmla but i dont even know where to start from.
I just feel so done most days.