Twist of Career Path

I am happy to pass the interview for Account Supervisor. I never thought I would come this far on my chosen Call Center career after I had given up my long time roaming the city, selling insurance. The first time I had given up my ledgers and worksheets as an Accountant, to sell insurance I thought I would stay in insurance selling for good. But despite the freedom I enjoyed, not being tied up with office deadlines. Insurance selling is tough yet, a noble profession. There are times I got physically tired looking for more clients who are willing to invest their monies in insurance.

Like in most events that happened to my life, curiosity led me to my Call Center career. I thought of applying to Call Centers so I could get some prospects for my insurance selling. I went to one of the Call Centers and filled out an application form. The lobby guard advised me I have to wait for someone to call me and that I am to take an exam. I had a second thought taking the exam. It had been a long time I had not taken any examination or interview. I said to myself. -“It is okay, there is no harm in trying. Besides my main objective is to look for some prospective clients and not to get hired. “

To my surprise I passed the examination and I was advised to come back for my interview. Wow! What a great opportunity. “Maybe I could ask the person who will interview me for his business card and presto. It would lead me to more prospective clients.” Those were the ideas that came to my mind. Events happened too fast. I passed the final interview. That was on a Friday, I was advised I am for training comes Monday, the following week. I got overwhelmed and the rest is history. I had written some details of the story in my earlier post here, titled “Call Center”. My insurance selling ended during the training.

The account I am assigned to by the way is an electricity company in the United States. I get to handle calls from irate to crying customers and all types of calls from customers from all walks of life. I had always encouraged some of my younger colleagues to be ambitious enough and pursue a much higher position. But for some reasons, my encouragements are not enough. They hesitated, the higher position you have, the higher the responsibility you take. From my end I am contented with being a simple Customer Care Advocate (CCA). I used to tell me younger colleagues I had my hay days in my career when I was much, much younger. I have no more ambition in pursuing a higher position.

But, there seems to be a twist of career path. The account, we are servicing suddenly had some kind of reorganization and are in need of more Account Supervisors. A lady friend of my mine who applied and passed the interview and eventually was hired had been convincing me to join the group. It took me at least two weeks to decide. I had some kind of self examination and asked myself if I am willing to take the challenge of a much higher responsibility. Not to mention of course accepting escalated calls from a CCA with irate customers on the line. And, the foremost concern is to resolve the customer reason for calling.

Yes, I accepted the challenge. Passing the interview and after a day of orientation I will start my new job in my new position next week. Some of my batch mates upon learning I accepted my new position, are happy to know someone from our training batch had the courage to accept the challenge. My colleagues at the team where I came from are jubilant! Three of us applied from our team and all of us made it. New three Account Supervisors would mean three family size boxes of pizza. ☺