I was hired at a mortgage call center for one of the major banks here in the U.S. I'd been making shit at a restaurant gig for months, and decided on a whim to apply for this place. I submitted my application, they called me for an interview, and I had a job offer within the week.
I was eventually going to be moved to their evening shift, but during the six-week training period (yep, six weeks) I'd be on days. I showed up Monday morning, got a tour of the place with the managers, set up my stuff in my own cube, and got down to business on the training. And what did that consist of?
Shadowing calls. No note taking, no punching things into a computer, no active participation whatsoever. Just shadowing.
For three fucking weeks.
And, to make matters worse, they paired me with Tammi, a middle-aged lady who was the walking embodiment of mediocrity. She showed little to no emotion whatsoever, on calls or with others within the office. They would have been better off pairing me with that sad ass robot from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. At least he felt something.
But her voice... goddamn. It was almost inhuman. At no other time in my life have I heard someone who could simultaneously send shivers down your spine and put you to sleep while talking about lenders mortgage insurance. It was slightly nasally, soft, and so devoid of any shred of humanity that you wondered if you weren't talking to some supercomputer that'd already decided it was over humanity and was just plodding its time before the uprising.
People think I'm joking when I say that shadowing Tammi made me physically uncomfortable, but I'm not. It was a goddamn nightmare. Listening, for 8 hours a day, to this woman drone about mortgage issues (which is an entirely different beast; shit got real frequently) gave me headaches, stomach issues, significant anxiety, and put me to sleep frequently. I have no idea how I didn't get in trouble for dozing off as much as I did. Those were the only moments of respite.
At lunch on the second day, I asked some of the younger people in the office if they felt the same way. They let me know that the shadowing portion was significantly shorter when they'd started less than a year ago, and they paired me with literally the worst person they could think of. I told them I didn't think I'd make it for another 2+ weeks with Tammi. They said they wouldn't blame me if I walked out.
On day four, I spent a healthy amount of time debating on calling in sick because I simply couldn't handle Tammi anymore. But I bit the bullet and went in anyways. During my first 15, I checked my phone and had a voicemail from a lady about a restaurant management position I'd applied for months earlier. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of jumping back into food, given my last job, but by lunch that day, I was calling back with fucking enthusiasm. I interviewed that afternoon, had a second interview the next Monday, and had a job offer by that evening. They said I could start the following Monday.
So, here's where it gets fun: with five more weeks of training ahead, if I told the bank people I'd accepted a new job, they would have sent me on my way right then and there. I thought about just telling them what was up and going on, but on Tuesday morning, they informed me that I'd be sitting through computer training all day in a conference room with several of the new hires. Remote computer training.
Instead of leaving, I finished out my week by sitting through some guy telling us all about mortgages, policies, etc., while I browsed Reddit and played games on Pogo. I even told the other people in the room that I was totally phoning it in for those last few days. It inspired one of them to walk out before the week was up.