Charlie May Lose His Job

Just when things were about to get better [or rather, I thought they were], today happens. Charlie got sick at work. Really sick. He threw up a lot and ended up having to walk out 45 minutes before he was supposed to. He couldn't do it. Charlie's a strong-willed person and when he says he was sick and couldn't do it, he really means it.

I'm expecting him to be fired. I know, you are probably thinking "well he was really sick and they won't fire him over that". I wish that were true. AT&T enjoys firing people it seems - especially in this economy where lots of people are eager for a job and will happily take your place. You get in trouble for everything there and if you miss even a day of work because you severed a body part, you get written up and you can only get written up so many times in a year before you are fired. Charlie is at the end of his rope on that one.

• He missed work because of bone spurs growing from the bottoms of his feet - a very common problem for people who suffer from gigantism. He also got tendonitus and as the spurs pierced his tendons, it caused them to seize up and tighten more. So yes, he missed work. He was in tons of pain. He couldn't work through it.
• He also had that migraine that lasted for months. He needed a cat scan and all sorts of crazy things because the pain simply wouldn't go away. I thought the man was going to die - and that's no exaggeration. It was very scary for us. Charlie missed a week of work. He didn't have a choice. He could hardly even open his eyes, much less read a computer screen. He had tons of doctor's notes and they didn't matter.

He got into a lot of trouble for those two occurrences and they were real emergencies. But that doesn't matter. AT&T doesn't care and I fear he's really about to get fired. I guess we'll know tomorrow for sure.

Pray for my family. This is the worst time possible for this crap.

Oh AT&T, Give Me a Break

The AT&T call center Charlie works for is cutting down its hours of operation. Starting September 13th, they will only be open until 11pm during the week, 2:30am on Saturdays and 12am on Sundays. They will also open later.

Fortunately, this won't affect how many hours Charlie works and he'll still work full time. However, it definitely ruins his hours. Right now, he works 6pm until 3am. We've always been able to get stuff done during the day if need be before he had to go to work and now we'll no longer really have that luxury.

This is but a step in the direction of closing the place completely. I'm really unhappy about it. We all know it's coming. Charlie has been putting applications in elsewhere but nothing seems to be biting. I hate where we live. I wish I could just pick us all up and make one big, drastic move elsewhere. But with the custody battle on-going and money being beyond the definition of tight, that will never happen.

Something big and good has to happen soon. I know it will. I can feel it and I have to stay positive about it.

Why I Hate AT&T

My husband Charlie works for AT&T's Wireless 411. Basically, people call in from their cell phones and they get an operator (Charlie, for example) and they give him the city, state and the person or company they want the number for. Sounds simple, right? Oh how very wrong you are. But I'll get more into that in a moment.

He is expected to maintain very specific numbers (we're talking down to the literal 10th of a second). He has to be at his desk with headphones on and computer running on time. His calls have to last under 26 seconds each. His breaks have to be timed exactly. There is no minute late. You can't even log back in 30 seconds early because it ruins your compliance percentage.

Every night, he's called horrible names by the customers. I don't just mean that the customers were rude... I mean they are downright cruel. It never fails that at least a dozen times per night, he's called the "N word" and pretty much everything but a kitchen sink. People scream at him, tell him he's stupid, that he should die because he's just a waste of air and the list sadly goes on and on. All of this over stuff like the following conversation:

"I'm sorry sir, I don't see a listing for [insert random pizza place here] in [insert random city and state here]. I do see a listing for it in [insert some other town very close by - likely the one the person is actually looking for]."
"No! That is NOT what I want. It's in [insert city the customer swears it's in] and I'm standing right in front of it!"

Are you serious? People do this all the damn time! Sometimes they even claim that another operator gave them the number, so they know the number exists. Well why the hell didn't you write it down the first time you idiot!?

That's just a mere taste of what he deals with every night from 6pm until 3am. He takes approximately 1,200 calls in a shift. AT&T makes $1.99 PER CALL. That means, the customer dialing the number actually gets charged $1.99 on their phone bill for calling 411.

Charlie makes $8.34/hour doing this job. For a state like South Carolina, that's sadly considered the standard of half-decent pay. For what he does... Not nearly enough. Sure, he gets to sit in a room on his behind and sit on the telephone. It sounds easy, but on more than one occasion, that man... my 6'8" big man of a husband... has come home in tears because he's been yelled at and mistreated by customers for 8 hours. So AT&T makes about $2,400 off of Charlie while before taxes, before union fees and before cost of the health insurance and anything else I'm not thinking of, Charlie makes about $67. That's just not right.

Looking past the fact that he is grossly underpaid... the company is constantly doing fundraisers for stupid crap. Okay, I'll admit... there was that one fundraiser for Autism Awareness but I didn't attend and honestly I'm not sure if it even happened. But the rest of these fundraisers have been towards the same thing every time. I have now heard of like 5 fundraisers for a Wii. No joke... the particular call center Charlie works for is trying to earn money to put a Wii in the break room. I don't even own a Wii and I'll be damned if I am going to spend my money so these people can play games during work!

And if there isn't a fund raiser going on, it's a company potluck during work hours. Everyone is expected to bring in a dish of food for everyone to share or provide money for food. Except Charlie works the late shift. When he goes into work at 6pm, the food has been sitting there all day and it cold and nasty. That's not right. Besides, I have enough trouble putting food on the table for my own family - why on earth would I pay money to feed these other people!?

The worst part is, if you even breath wrong you are fired. It's damn near impossible to get promoted in this place. Charlie was out of work a few times. One of those times it was because he was suffering from a potential brain aneurysm [I caused it.. long, hilarious story] and he had a migraine for a whole month. He had to get a cat scan and all sorts of things. He was out of work for a WEEK and had a doctor's note. Doesn't matter - it's on his permanent record for the next like 7 years with them. He can't get promoted now.

I really hate that place. It's a dead end job. It doesn't pay much. The work is emotionally draining. I don't even work for them and it stresses me out so I can't even imagine how Charlie must be feeling!