Team Leader !!!!

Our team leader Allwin Prashanth is a tall and handsome guy. Very friendly and approachable. Always has a witty answer for every question up his sleeve. He is a practical guy who does not bother to call us for mediocre things like call quality feedback and stuff. He gives feedback only if we screw up the call. The most significant quality about him is his style. He is so stylish that he fails to notice the magnitude of it and its effect on people around him.

To explain this, I must tell you what happened during Swapna's birthday party. Almost all of us have come and we were waiting for the manager. It is not usual for him to be late, but he made a stupendous entrance. What an entrance it was. The whole team was outside the house the moment we heard his horn at the end of the street. He slowly stopped in front of the house, lowered the windows. His left hand on the steering wheel and removed the sunglasses with the right hand and gave the faintest of a smile. The effect was so magnificent that David could not stop himself from whistling and the whole team erupted with wolf whistles and WOWs.

It was the topic of conversation for at least 1 hour. Allwin regretted the fact that he was so stylish and he couldn't do anything to be any less. If anything would have made the effect even better it would have been this.,

1. Instead of Santro, if it were a Safari/Sumo
2. If he would have worn White & white
3. If there were some background music from stereo like "Samarasimha Reddy" or "Indra"

The effect would be 1000x greater. Maybe Allwin deliberately did not do that, because he knew that this was enough to get us excited, and it surely was. Anymore than this would have created hysteria among us. Sirisha was still talking about it when we went to drop her at her home. Even the next day, we discussed it on the floor. Allwin might wish to reduce his style henceforth which is very difficult, as the elders say "Puttukatho vachinavi eppatiki povu" which means, you will not lose the qualities you acquired from birth !!!!

Allwin was recently blessed with another son. We planned to visit his home to see him but I was not fortunate enough to make it there. Allwin does his best to help us during work and he expects equal dedication from us. He managed to get bays allotted to our team. Now I hope we wont have to sit separately in others' bays but in our own.

Batch breaks up

Although RU-41(Ramp-up 41, our batch's name during the training)were initially together, it was time for us to separate. Russell, John, Mario and Loren were supposed to sit with their team-mates. I was left with Larry, Irfan, Sikha, Sujith and Dheeraj. The seating was in random order at first, but later on, Me, Larry and Irfan began to sit together. Sometimes, Sikha would join us when Imran, her fiancee, would not come.

Sujith would sit with Loren, after all, they got along well during training itself. Dheeraj would always sit with different people(not his fault though) because of unavailability of computers.

Although we enjoyed the greater AHT spec during training, the option was running out. There are 4 ratings for our performance viz., NI(Needs Improvement), ME(Meets Expectations), HM(Highly Meets expectations), EE(Exceeds Expectations). I managed to get all four till now.

We were formally introduced to our team. The team includes(in alphabetical order),

Ali Zaheer Ali - He is extremely lean and magnificently friendly. He was kinda AHT King on the floor. Always among the top performers, he used to sit with Sameera on the floor. Two very good friends. Ali went to GEMS in Noida. Even after going there, he used to send us mails and keep in touch with us.

Arokya Lawrence - He is kinda too funky. Kind of a rebel but maintains his AHT. He was fired last month for reasons I don't want to detail.

David - I already told you about David. David is also the Outings SPOC.

Dheeraj Venkata Naga Sai Nittala - Ask him what he wants to do about his career, and he would become all passionate about doing MBA. He wanted to introduce us all to his girlfriend Nicky, which became possible only after Swapna's birthday. Larry knew about her before us though. People would sometimes mistake me for him. Some say we look like siblings and some get our names mixed up. Especially our UC Jarin. He would sometimes call me Dheeraj.

Ekta Mathur - She is very bubbly and innocent looking girl. She is too small. Larry and I sort of call her child labor(secretly !!!). Even though she is senior to us on the floor, she would sometimes ask us something about process, Larry can't help but reiterate the fact that she is a kid(literally small). Ekta is Birthday celebrations SPOC.

Irfanuddin Mohammed - This handsome hunk is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of our team. Although very approachable, he mysteriously disappears during weekends. We have about three phone numbers and he is on none of them. Has good amount of work experience and knows the insides of the BPO business. Currently, he is the Leave & Karvan SPOC of the team.

Jaya Priyadarshini - The only UAL in our team, Jaya is one of the most senior agents in the team. Very jovial and kind. Her business name is Edna(her grandmother's name). I would sometimes call her Edna and she would call me Vincent. She used to pull my leg because I would spell my business name on calls. And she would deliberately ask for the spelling to increase my AHT and get me frustrated...!!! just kidding guys, she is great fun !!!!

Majeed - Haven't got the opportunity to know more about him. But he is a cool & friendly guy.

Praveen - I already told about him. He is also the Process SPOC of our team.

Sameera - Very jovial and charming personality. She was one of the first persons from the team who became my friend. She left the company soon after Ali left Hyderabad.

Shanthi Tayilgopal - She is the Mallu Kutti in our team and recently got married. The cute couple came to Swapna's house on her birthday. She introduced her better-half to us. She is on morning shift, so we hardly meet.

Sikha Das - There is nothing special about Sikha, and that is her speciality. Normalcy doesn't bode well with everybody. Some people just cant be normal, they would want to be special. But she is special in her own way. Although from Calcutta, she worked previously with HSBC in Vizag.

Sirisha - I call her "Peddakka" out of sheer respect !!!! Hehe....just kidding. To tell you the truth, I don't know why I call her like that. But mind you she isn't the only one I call by that name. She is very customer centric. Takes very good calls and strives to help customers on calls even if it means to violate a few rules according to the process, like me ;-D

Sujith - I met him during MST and Christy introduced him to us all as Mallu. I, without even bothering to know his real name, saved his phone number as Mallu in my phonebook. He is a very good dancer, athlete and an even better artist. He showed us his works and they were really good. He also won the prize for best drawing during Independence day on our floor. Very Handsome but short in height. Very friendly and helpful guy. He evidently makes more money than most of us because he is a very good referrer i.e., he refers his friends and gets paid for that. I believe his monthly income is almost equivalent to PD100. From a fresher, now that is saying something....!!!

Swapna - It took merely seconds for us become friends. If Sirisha is "Peddakka", Swapna is "Chinnakka". Allwin once asked why I call them that. I couldn't tell him that I have no sisters, as I got a call right at that moment. I consider them to fill the gap in the office. We got to meet Swapna's family during her birthday. It was an amazing turn-out. Almost the whole team came which was rare. It took us a while to locate her house in Moulali, but the whole experience of it is memorable. Dheeraj, Larry & me were hunting for her house and Dheeraj would bicker all along the way that I can't plan anything correctly, etc.....

Terrence Neol Johnson - Very calm and reserved person. Maybe because I haven't got to know him as much.

New kids on the block !!!!

My first call......frankly, I don't remember it. But I can tell you that it was pathetic. What could you expect from me anyways.... ;) hehe !!!

Russell was so silent on calls that even if you are sitting next him, you can only hear a murmuring sound and his lips moving. Yet, he is very clear on calls. I heard one of his calls. During the Ordinate test before we start taking calls, all of us got around average scores. But Irfan who got very less in the Ordinate test before the training, got the highest(80) in the final Ordinate test. Irfan and Russell were the only ones to get 80. My score decreased from the last score though. Anyways, all of us were taking calls except for Arokya. We were wondering and suddenly she had a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Praneeth. We haven't seen her since.

While taking calls, we have Floor-walkers to help new agents. The floor-walkers would change from day to day. Usually we had Ankur Bose, Ramya Bali, Srijana, Bhanu, Praveen, David, KP(Krishna Priya), Irshad, Chaitanya Bokka, etc etc.....

We had huddles everyday. As new agents, we were in this fresh batch called Bridge period. It lasts for around 3 months. As long as we are in the bridge period, we are learners and must learn from our mistakes as much as we can. So I made the most mistakes and learnt the most.... lolzz...just kidding !!!

Ankur is a cool chap, always easy going and spirited. His energy level is very high. Ramya Bali is.....Ramya Bali !!! :D

Srijana is the hip-hop kinda girl on the floor. With the trendy head-gear etc....

David is the weirdest of them all. He gives a completely irrelevant answer, laughs at his own joke, and then gives the right answer. Praveen is a cool guy and has a few awards in his bag for his exceptional performance.

KP is EXTREMELY soft spoken and timid. She is the kind of a girl who makes a breathy and surprised sound for any question asked.

Bhanu is kinda the most handsome guy on the floor. Tall, broad shoulders, fun-loving, and cool. Too many adjectives I guess, but cant help. He is also IT SPOC(Single Point Of Contact) for any IT issue.

Chaitanya is the "Knight in Armor" on the floor. Almost all the new agents call him "Sir"....maybe for his personality. He is really calm and assertive kinda guy. Can take stress and handle it well too. Even personal ones. Everyone on the floor(Old kids on the block) call him Bokka, by his last name. At first, I thought they were teasing him for some specific reason as Bokka means hole in Telugu. And he knows the language. It turns out that he lives near my house in another area and sometimes we get same cab for the pick-up.

Almost all of them are UALs(Universal Assist Line). They are like supervisors on the floor.

We had regular huddles, mini assessments, and refresher sessions of the training. Sometimes we would be joined by our managers. Since we were divided into two teams, sometimes Ashwin and sometimes Allwin would be with us. I always get confused with these two names and call them with the other's name. I still have this problem and am working on it.

As long as you are in bridge period, you are allotted a larger AHT(Average call Handle Time) bracket. So we needn't worry about our AHT, just yet.

And I forgot to mention about our UC(Universal Coach) Jarin Thomas. He is a curly haired and formally casual(don't know how else to explain !!!) guy whose bay is filled with certifications and customer compliments.

Although he is no longer my UC. Now we have a another guy. A new guy on the floor and process, Ankush. Cant tell anything about him yet, as I don't know him myself.

Late Bloom !!!

Although I am posting this article 6 months after I joined GEMS Hyd(GE Money Servicing), I remember the journey like yesterday. Let me begin by telling you how it all started. I received a call from Planman Consultancy regarding interviews. I went and met Maushmi and she arranged for the interviews with a couple of companies. I wanted to join CFC International for their higher pay-package. But I wasn't given the job as the work experience that I had does not qualify as valid full-time work experience.

I was interviewed by Mr. Sudhakar from GEMS Hyd (GE Money Servicing). After the usual questionnaire about my academics and other stuff came the JAM and telephonic interview round. I managed to clear all of those but unfortunately I was only one from that batch.

I went to ILABS, Hyd, which would be my office for the coming months. Gave the required documents to Mr. Sudhakar and joined the MST(Mind Space Training).

Let me tell you something about MST. GEMS is a very clever organisation. They do everything according to the procedure and also manage to bring up novel ideas to retain new hires. MST is a tool used for this. We are to attend these sessions everyday and we will be paid for it. Meanwhile the HR sends our profile for verification. As the verification takes place, we have a good time with MST trainers who are not GE Employees but are from an outsourced HR organisation. By doing this they get to keep the new hires as long as the verification might take(given the stringent verification parameters) and also not officially call them GE Employees. If there is something wrong with the profile, we will be politely asked to leave the organisation.

In other companies, after clearing the rounds, the company asks for some time for profile verification. Meanwhile, we attend interviews of other companies for jobs and if we are able to get a better offer, we conveniently forget about the previous company who already working on your verification. If the employee rejects the offer after completing verification, the company will lose the money spent on the verification and also a potential candidate. GEMS gets the score in this issue here.

My MST trainers were Christy and Anjali. We had a good time during the training. I met a couple of my would be team-mates during that time. There was Sujith(Mallu), Loren, Irfan, Lawrence(Larry), Sikha Das, Russell, John John Malla, Mario, Arokia Mary and Dheeraj. Also I met a few others who ended up other processes like risk and SF.

A few others were selected for PMG process. The lot includes, Prahith and Mazhar who was initially in our team but left due to unforeseen reasons.

We were employed by GEMS on 7th May, 2008. It was a day of signatures and data entries. The good thing about it was that I ended up with a good bunch of friends and sad thing is that I hardly spent time in MST with the others. It was truly a honeymoon period.

Our process was PMG(Partnership Marketing Group). This is a consolidated process where we arrange roadside assistance like towing, lock-out, jump start, tire change services etc. It also includes the credit card sentinel process. It has many clubs like SNAC(Signature Nationwide Auto Club), BP Motor club, AARP motoring plan, NSD, SAM's Club etc etc....

Our process trainer was Sainath(Scott), voice trainer was Shimul and cultural trainer was Shelley Kasunich. Initially, we were only trained in BP motor club, SNAC and CCS.

Sainath was the extremely neutral, calm, professional and wasn't easily excitable kinda guy. But his English is really good. At first I thought he was faking his accent, but I didn't notice any change in the accent ever since then. His process knowledge is great. He was ok with occasional indiscipline given that we are all new employees and mostly all of us are freshers. We used to extend our breaks and he tried his best to get us disciplined but we hardly improved. Not his fault though ;)

I was very competitive at everything. When Sainath said there would be occasional quizzes and stuff, I was excited. He made teams from us and the teams were names after makes of car manufacturers like Chevy, Ford etc etc...

I would get over-excited and would try my best to score and get points, I would literally get involved in the quiz and wont accept the spirit of such quizzes. Maybe that is why, Sainath would change rules in the middle of the game so that in the final winning moments of the quiz, we would lose with just one final question. I would get really frustrated and angry at Sainath. Later would realise that this is life and it can be really unfair at times. I got along well with the training and finished it.

Shimul was very friendly and spirited. Although we enjoyed her session more than Sainath's we deliberately told her that we find her very boring and silent. She put in extra effort to make our classes exciting. Actually that was what we wanted and we got it. Her classes became even more exciting and we truly had fun time during training.

Shelley was our cultural trainer. She was a Canadian by nationality but would make us understand the thinking and life style of Americans. The training includes idioms and proverbs etc. Shelley was so full of energy that it exudes from her and into others around her. She along with Shimul took our mock call for the final assessment.

The training took around 45 days to complete. It was time for team allotment. Me, Larry, Sujith, Sikha, Irfan, Dheeraj, Mazhar and Prahith were in Allwin's Team. Arokya Mary, Loren, Mario, Russell and John John Malla were in Ashwin's Team.

Arokya, Mazhar and Prahith left the company soon after team allotment.