Coffee – sales have sky rocketed and one of the major markets of Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee or Gloria Jean’s have been call center employees.  What’s disappointing though is that they close early (for us night crawlers).   They are not 24 hours…YET.

This is how I we look like when we all wake up in the morning (evening).  We can’t start the ever stressful day without coffee. Mind you, this is a staple drink for us.  How can we talk all day if we feel and look this way?  How can we talk to customers on the phone if we’re all grouchy and cranky?  This is definitely a NO-NO!  We have to be perky, excited, and have a face with a smile.   Thank you for coffee.  A dose of caffeine, and we’re ready for battle.

Now sometimes a cup or two isn’t enough to keep us wired all day.  We get so hooked and then realize that a trip to the local Starbucks is just a tad heavy on the pocket – if taken daily.  So, we all demanded for FREE COFFEE.  Yes, we demanded for it.  Soon enough, we had brewed coffee with the usual cream and sugar on the side.  Since we all had “spill proof mugs”, it was easy to refill anytime we wanted.

Soon enough, we had to cut down to just a regular cup.  The employees were just too wired and we became too paranoid.  Some agents now have started a list to “avoid a call” for example.  This usually happens if you’re handling customer service, especially if you expect to receive calls from customers yelling 80% of the time.

Most had trouble sleeping and it took hours on end just to get to bed.  We now had a higher rate of absenteeism or tardiness because everyone just needed to get an extra or two hours of sleep to show up at work.

It’s an endless cycle…but coffee is still a preference.  It keeps us from falling asleep while talking to a customer, sane, and perky enough to avoid anyone yelling at us.  Do we hate it? Yes and no.  We’ve just adjusted to the lifestyle.