Cheap Workforce: The Modern Slavery by Dannae Juillette Florez Avellaneda

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 16:18:21 UTC

As soon as I turned 18, I started working in a bilingual call center because I needed to practice my English skills and it was very well paid — they paid 1'800.000 COP, which was a lot for someone who used to receive 25.000COP per day —.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 16:36:16 UTC

Being that call center my first formal job, I was of course incredibly nervous but also confident in the years that I spent learning and practicing the language. I've always been a little bit of a nerd, so I assumed that all the great comments about my English proficiency and my performance, in general, were 100% accurate and I wouldn't have any problem communicating with native speakers.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 17:02:06 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 17:07:14 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 17:33:05 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 17:41:00 UTC

Soon I realized that I was not even close to having good English proficiency, and I experienced the first culture shock in my life when I found out that the kindness and respect with which people treat you here in Colombia are not something usual in the US. Turns out Colombians are seen as too sensitive and emotional and are used (as in many other Latino cultures) to not go so straightforward or direct when they talk to people because there is a great focus on face-saving.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 21:45:20 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-15 21:45:52 UTC

About Myself

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 18:55:55 UTC

My name is Dannae Juillette, I'm 21 years old, and I started studying for a BA in Spanish and Foreign Languages aiming to be a teacher.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 19:24:30 UTC

This auto-historia will work for me as a reflection of how valuable people's lives are for international companies in a globalized world, what can Latinos expect from interactions with people from the US, how cultural differences can interfere with our perceptions about others, and the denigration towards people who work in customer service.

The first job

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 19:28:49 UTC

The first campaign in which I worked was Iberia, I was a customer service representative and at first, I was just amazed and felt very privileged (which I was) for having the opportunity of earning a lot of money just for knowing another language.

The Modern Maze of Cultural Identity | Mashaal Hijazi

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 19:39:08 UTC

Defining one's cultural identity in a generation of instant gratification, illogical racism, and influence from the media filled with ethnocentrism isn't particularly easy. How do we define who we are when we live in a world which wants to take clues from our physical characteristics, accents, and dress and create an identity for us before we ever get a chance to? When do I get to be my own version of me?

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 19:45:13 UTC

However, I was still young and had the responsability of studying and working (which was not easy) and also had the pressure of my supervisors watching every move that I made. You couldn't get connected 1 minute late, if your shift started at 8, it was 8 o-clock with every program opened and ready to take calls.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-17 19:51:44 UTC

You had 15-minute breaks but there was a huge scolding if you took 16 instead. There was something we called "back-to-back" when referring to all the calls that were on-hold (which were always a lot), so we didn't have almost any space among calls, you hung up you receive another one in less than 30 seconds sometimes.
The control that call centers have over your time is terribly overwhelming, the coercion to be in that computer was kind of a lot for everyone, but anyway we needed the job so it was what it was.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 00:03:58 UTC

In addition to the control that they have over your time, there is the emotional baggage that you carry because of all the disrespect, racism, and emotional abuse you experience from the customers (because I couldn't even hang up the call when they were being rude, you just had to pretend like it wasn't happening).
For a person who is still developing a personality and an identity, and that doesn't have the maturity to understand it is not personal & that there is a hierarchy* (where sadly the one taking the call is at the bottom of it), it is really hard to take all the bad things and just hold still because you need the money.
At some point, I even started believing what gringos said to me and questioned my background and my value as a person. Thinking back, I was in the disintegration - integration stage of culture shock feeling lost self-esteem and rebuff of the new culture that I was being exposed to.

*: A hierarchy where the person calling has the power because of their first-world, social class, ethnocentric, and language proficiency advantages.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 00:07:25 UTC

And talking about Teleperformance...

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 00:16:32 UTC

The second job

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 00:24:03 UTC

I lasted one year in that job, I wanted to quit long before that, but I was still insecure and doubted if any other company would hire me because of my poor English skills.
The next job that I had (after "me renunciaron" from Iberia-Sitel) was in the collections department of Capital One (in Concentrix).
The calls were both in Spanish and English, but the mistreatment remained the same, and that's when I learned it was not only English native speakers but anyone located in the US (even Latinos) could be needlessly rude.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 00:31:01 UTC

Waves of people hired month after month, people coming and leaving. What did globalization mean for them? An opportunity. What did globalization mean for the ones at the top of the hierarchy? Cheap Workforce.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:10:50 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:17:04 UTC

As happens in other Cross-Cultural Adjustment processes, I just got used to how things were, and kind of learned how to pass unnoticed in my calls.
I knew that as Kumaravadivelu (2014) mentions, patterns, maxims, and accents are the norm to be learned, taught, and followed, so I learned how to kind of accommodate my accent to not sound so Latina (which for gringos is a broken English).
Now when I answered a call nobody asked for a supervisor, just from time to time they contemptuously asked: "where are you located". The good thing is that we were obligated to say that we were in the US so I would just hide behind that.

The third one and the rest...

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:33:53 UTC

It's been 3 or 4 years working in call centers, I worked for Lorex as tech Support

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:34:56 UTC

I worked for Unitedhealthcare (Hell)

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:36:05 UTC

I worked for Norton LifeLock (In Teleperformance)

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:37:59 UTC

And finally in BackMarket (Sitel)

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:50:53 UTC

Everything basically remained the same everywhere, I just got better at the task of not sounding like someone out of the US.

Now trying to understand (not justify) people's attitudes...
- In their culture time is well appreciated, in cities like New York people are always eager and they get stressed when something takes more than they expect.
- In the US scams are something very common, and people are usually afraid of being victims of a scam, so they are pretty cautious when talking to foreigners.
- Most gringos are Monoculturals, promote ethnic marginalization, and there are prejudices and a lack of geographical knowledge, for most of them think we all are Mexicans and are labeled as gang members.
- Native speakers avoid interactions with people who they think won't understand them, even more, when there is something that has to be done.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 01:57:08 UTC

I would say it is important to talk with students about these issues, people who are learning should be taught to expect this kind of injustice because not all people are nice and not all learners are mentally prepared for all rejection they might take meanwhile they are learning. It would be great to take into account and apply the broad strategies to face culture shock (which can be experienced even in your home country thanks to technology).
Anyway, I have learned, all this experience encouraged me to improve myself, prioritize my mental and emotional well-being, and stop taking random people's crap.
Now I am happily working in something else and will hopefully never come back to call centers because they are so negreros and we (for them) are just Cheap Workforce: The Modern Slavery <3.

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 02:16:44 UTC

When asking someone to share their testimony

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 04:43:02 UTC

dannaeflorez — 2022-11-18 05:02:29 UTC