Gozit

Hi all, was just wondering, does anybody have experience working in a call center, either in the UK or abroad as a native english speaker? Were your native english skills in high demand or was it a hard job to find with decent pay? I'm looking at possible jobs to do when I get back to Malta, but since the economy is dim there, there isn't many options. Call center is one of the better-paying ones, so i'm told.

Is it a moderately enjoyable job to do? I do think i'd enjoy shiftwork so I wouldn't have a problem with that

Thanks

christmasoompa

I did it once and it was soul destroying. Probably 80% of phone calls resulted in abuse, piss taking or hang ups, and you need to have a very resilient personality to not take it personally.

As for the 'one of the better paying ones', that's certainly not true of the UK where it's a very low paying job (most are outsourced to India or similar countries for that very reason). Everybody I was doing it with viewed the job as a 'stop gap' until something better came along, or often they were uni students just doing it in their holidays. Maybe Malta is different though?

This article may be useful reading, to see how call centres are viewed in the UK - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-8654571.html

HTH.

Gozit

Thanks

And in Malta, everything is low pay, it doesn't matter what you do. Fully qualified English teachers make €20,000 a year ! People "working up the ladder" without a degree make a better salary (though not by much - €25,000 or at max €30,000 a year) but it takes much longer to get such salary.

RICH

Not quite what you mean, but I worked for a photocopier firm, and my job was to call customers to get the meter reading for billing (they were not automated in 2005). 9 times out of 10 the person i got wanted to complain about the machine . I quit after 3.5 days.

Gozit

Ah. Doesn't sound too nice then. I'll cross this one off the list

old.sparkles

What's the cost of living like in Malta do you know?

Gozit

Cheaper than Canada, but not low enough to warrant qualified professionals making €25-30,000 a year. Petrol and electric are expensive.