Year One @ Sykes

Today marks my first year in Sykes. Whew who would have thought I'd last this long!? Despite all the hardships and pain, I'm still there. Countless times I have considered resigning but my ego tells me not to. I was afraid of what others might say. As we are all aware of, it was a big decision that I made after 5 years of teaching. It was far from what I knew and my expertise and it was so different from my usual routine. It was a complete turn around, I should say. I wanted to prove something not for anyone else but for myself.

Honestly, I still struggle each shift. I even pray hard before I start with work that I'll be a ble to handle it. The stress level was enormous during the shift. I thought it was an easy job but it wasn't. I thought it was all fun and being able to hang out with new people. God I can only count with my fingers the number of times that I had hang out with my new friends! I thought I knew the world I was entering into but I was all wrong. I had to deal with every person with every emotion that you can think of. Sad to say, I'm a people person but it does not work in this kind of job.

I'm not saying that this kind of work is bad. I do recommend it because it made me a lot tougher. They say it's a demeaning job. Oh no, you might be surprised that the nationality that we highly regard of would have a pea size of a brain! I'm not generalizing them but I would get the shock of my life every now and then. I realized that if I let them look down on me, they will really think low of me and all of us. Discrimination is the lowest form of idealogy. I love my country more and appreciated the warmness of our race. Filipinos do rock! Of course, there were times that I would get super duper nice callers and they would be glad upon knowing that I'm a Filipino. "Filipino, Filipino, Filipino!". We would somehow divert our conversation about the Philippines: its political situation, its fine(?) weather and its vacation spots. I feel proud about being Filipino. More often than not I also learn from them. Sometimes, they would share about their life, their culture and their city. I envy the times when they tell me that they've got inches of snow when we, in the Philippines, complain about our very humid weather. I've made friends with some of our callers and I am happy that they do remember me. There were times that a caller would crack me up and the last bad call I had would just fade from my memory.

What actually keeps me hanging is my team. The relationship may not be smooth sailing but we made sure that we are always there for each other. Since we're very few in the team, we always look out for each other. Thankfully also, we have a foster team on the other side of the floor. When nights our tough, WE EAT. Amidst all the troubles that we encounter. we still manage to laugh. Our clients think that we're perfectly alright when in fact, we are not. I am glad that my booboo days are over and I can enjoy my chats with my direct supervisor Tina. I also love my team because they love McDonalds. Each time I crave for Mcdo, they also join my caprice. They stood by me when I was troubled, when people made wrong accusations about me, when people talked behind my back. It was a big storm that almost crushed me but I had my team backing me up.

No job is perfect. I know anywhere I go, one way or another, something bad will happen and I just have to deal with it. I'm hanging by a thread each time and I don't know how long this thread is.

When will I get some slack? I'm going to enjoy my vacation leaves coz I owe it all to myself. I gotta reward myself. Promise!