Easy, seniority is determined by promotion and how much you are buddy-buddy with the right people in a lot of call center environments. It has absolutely nothing to do with how well you perform or how long you have been there. Skin color and background will heavily influence it too.
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Looks like there are at least a few ex-EDSers here on BoingBoing! We should start a club!!! Double bonus points if you also worked for Perot Systems. Yeah, Iâm a two-time loser. 
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Itâs not necessarily a call center. PART of their duties were customer support. To me it sounded like what Mr. Bells has to do sometimes with a new software release: come in on Saturday in case something breaks.
Iâm a regular AAM reader, and I know she often has a back-and-forth conversation with a letter-writer to get more details. She wonât publish a letter she thinks is obviously fake, but if sheâs doubtful but thinks her answer could be helpful anyway, sheâll sometimes go ahead. This is the second letter to blow up the internet in the last couple of weeks; there was an earlier one about an intern who got fired for challenging the dress code that also went viral.
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Youâre a bit of a masochist, arenât you? 
And yeah, thatâs pretty weird! Itâs like an âAll roads lead to Amberâ thing, except EDS, and away from.
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Whether or not this story is fake, one thing is clear to me: itâs completely believable.
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Mr. Bellsâ reaction was âHuh. That sounds just like [OldBossâName].â
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Real or fake, unfuck that guy.
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I finally beat my head against that brick wall one too many times and will never go the outsourcing / contracting route again!
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I have a very hard time believing this isnât fake. There is simply no way that an employee that has worked at a call center for 6 years could have the lowest seniority. At most call centers the person with the lowest seniority would be the two or three people who started today . One of those people will quit before lunchtime and another wonât show up tomorrow.
The bit about making allowances for the person with concert tickets rings very false too. This is just a âsee how evil I am?â statement meant to generate comments.
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norms = unspoken rules = bullshit artists
IMO the only reason people ever go out of their way to avoid codifying things explicitly is to avoid accountability. Whether they are lying to you or to themselves, they donât âprofessâ to much.
Somebody stop me, before I graduate again!
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I worked at a call centre with someone whoâd been there seven years and never been promoted. He was the union rep. Funny, that.
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Could be âWorked there for six years AND lowest seniority worker not already scheduled for that shiftâ
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That reminds me of the best advice I ever had on management:
There are two types of manager; funnels, and umbrellas. Make your choice.
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I also worked somewhere where you had no chance of promotion to management unless you were part of their creepy church. It was, apparently an âethical, fair-tradeâ company selling crunchy eco-products. They were some mean-spirited motherfuckers to work for. Funnily enough, there was another, similar company up the road, equally churchy, and the bassist from Venom worked for them.
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You worked for Send The Light? They had a department that was supposedly for ethical, fair trade products.
My mum kept applying to become the manager of her department there, and the company kept offering the job to people from the bosses evangelical church (my mum was mainstream CofE). They were consistently incompetent and my mum ended up doing their job (without the managers pay) until they left and someone else from the same church got the job.
Eventually she handed in her resignation just after the latest manager handed in his. She finally got the job after that.
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âChurch ofâ is probably safe to assume. But what does fE stands for? flying Eels? fortunate Eccentrics?
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Church of England
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No, they were called âEthical Superstoreâ
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Oddly enough the part of this that rings most true to me is this:
[quote=âfrauenfelder, post:1, topic:81088â]
Since sheâs never had anyone to teach her professional norms, I want to help her so she doesnât make the same mistake again.[/quote]
Maybe thatâs because Iâve worked for managers who were aware of how their work environment enabled and possibly even created assholes but werenât aware that they were part of the problem.
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Funny you say âguyâ, or I havenât read the article right, and missed it. But I thought it would be a woman. With all the unkind wording you can attach at such behavior BTW.
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