On The End of My Call Center Career

 So I think I haven't verbalized or fully appreciated that my Call Center career officially ended July 31, 2020. 

In the context of FIRE, I officially or unofficially retired from Call Center work. I don't think I fully realized that. 

I'm honestly conflicted. I didn't think it was going to end this way. I have such an emotional relationship with money. It's why I don't check my balances often and why I've been reticent to negotiate in the past. If things don't go as expected, I have a temporary (yet all-consuming) emotional reaction that often leads to choices with longer lasting effects. 

To read my blog posts over the last year since I started at Call Center #3, it reads as though I'm really angsty and unhappy. And there were a lot of tears for sure, but I was growing wasn't I? How do you know when the tears mean something. But then a lot of times, I felt I wasn't growing professionally. The narrative in the back of my mind was that there was nothing I could do now that I couldn't do a year ago. Most of that is true. I didn't need 3 degrees to do my job. I think everyday working with people that came into the job with a different background than I did seemed to punch me in the throat. Maybe I felt like I was better than this job. Yeah. It was difficult to reconcile that we could be at the same level essentially doing the same job for the same pay and I took 3 degrees to get here. 

I don't know. When I read the old blog posts, it feels justified to have left if I was really that unhappy. But sometimes you can just vent. I don't know that I was really that unhappy. What's unsettling is, I don't even remember most of those things. At least not the specifics, but the feelings must have lingered because here I am. 

That's the thing with sharing your life and venting and documenting things. There's a permanency and there's sort of some need for action. I see it with the decline of reality TV relationships. You (the reality tv show cast) see the negative highlight reel publicized and you feel a need to save face where had it been private, things could have been more easily resolved or at least minimized and forgotten. It's the issue I originally had with Mint. It kept reminding me of the fees my broker was charging. I felt this need to act.  

Same with this job...well old job. I felt this need to act. But now I wonder, does every feeling require an action? Can you just have your feelings and it be okay. You can have a bad day or a string of bad days and still like or want to keep your job? Was this job 80% good? It's the conversation I always had with myself at Call Center #1 and why I stayed for 4 years. 

It was an easy job that I could easily clock out of. I never cleared 6 figures like other people in my profession but I also was not stressed. I clocked in, did my work, and clocked out. No homework, no problem-solving. I was to bide my time. It was only when I started chasing money goals did I start feeling dissatisfied and unappreciated. I had to react, I thought.  

In one version of this end of career story, I called my boss's bluff. And I guess she called my bluff because she did not ask me to say or long for me. She cancelled me. I guess I was hoping the threat of losing me would cause some sort of change or desire for me. UNEQUIVOCALLY IT DID NOT.  How in a move to feel empowered, I feel so wronged and disempowered?

I'm scared to complain now because I don't want to look back on this and feel some need to act. 

Did I get used to the chaos? Did I get used to being on the outside? I don't know. Is it even going to be better on this side of the lawn, or is it just more grass?

I think right now, I'm just realizing I'm going to have to learn a whole new field and I was kind of over that. To be this close to FIRE and essentially switch careers. I was prepared to just finish unhappily with Call Center #3. I will say I freaked out a little bit when we got the Return to Work Notice for Sep 1. 

I thought I had at least until the end of the year. And maybe by then, things would be different. I had started to prioritize responsibilities.

This feels like the right move on paper, I'm just having a hard time adjusting.

I think most of all, my time at the Call Center just feels unfinished. 

I do have a history of pre-emptive conclusions. I don't like unknowns. I didn't want to be in limbo with the return to work situation. I didn't want to be in limbo with the - what-the-heck is my job situation? Because really, what was my job? 

Squabbles happen. I was making progress at the Call Center, perhaps not at the pace I desired. But things were happening. 

Suffice to say, there is some buyer's remorse happening here. 

So yes, y'all. I started at Call Center #1 the day after Labor Day (Sept) in 2015 and I ended my time at Call Center #3 a month before Labor Day (so Aug) of 2021. Six years of call center. I started as an agent and ended as an ops manager. That's pretty good. I started as a vendor and ended as a member of a client team. That's pretty good. 

Trying  to find some perspective here.

Actually let's be honest. While at Call Center #3, I day dreamed about being back at Call Center #1 and #2 taking my 6 max calls a day and lounging. Haha. Working 7  to 7.5 hour days.  How many times did I check job boards and try to see if there were openings to go back. But I persisted with the ops role. 

I think it was just clear when I was an agent that there was something more to do. I had big ideas. And I still think I had some ideas for Call Center #3. It just feels like a shame to let 6 years of experience go to waste. That's all.

It almost feel like I was layed off or something. I was reading about this online and it seems it's fairly common to experience feelings of grief at the end of a job- even one you leave pseduo-voluntarily. 

I'm sure this is only part 1 of this feelings saga. I have quite a few more life updates but I have to get ready for this meeting. Happy Monday!