The Call Centre Quandary

If this was a little too cryptic, the news is that Vodafone are outsourcing my department as of the end of April, so I’m soon to be joining the esteemed ranks of the occupationally-challenged. Being a helpdesk, one might have assumed that we would be outsourced to India. This is not the case. It would seem that after years and years of UK companies shipping their call centres out to the Indian sub-continent, the workforce are beginning to get wise and are realising that they’re entitled to things like “annual leave” and “money”. For this reason, Vodafone has decided to outsource us to the least socially accomplished place on the planet – Portsmouth.

While it may seem unlikely, the people of Portsmouth will eventually learn about benefits and entitlements and then large corporates like Vodafone are going to be stuck. Where next? Whispers are that they’re trialling a call centre with one of the head-hunting tribes in New Guinea. Callers to the helpdesk have yet to notice any difference (being greeted with muffled screams and grunts), and the only employee who took a sick day was boiled up in a big pot for dinner. This seems to be working well at the moment – but I’m warning you now, it won’t be long before the workforce are demanding more shrunken heads and a pension way before they’re sacrificed...

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