A call center is terribly depressing. Low pay and get screamed and cursed at by customers all day long. Anything that might give those employees a little joy I'm all for.
Tough day at the office? How about a mandatory photo montage to calm you down, ordered by an AI that's monitoring how close you get to breaking point
A bank is using AI to monitor call center workers' stress levels and automatically play photo montages when it all gets too much.www.pcgamer.com
Couldn't find the AI thread I made a long time ago and forgot...
So a company I used to work in management for, First Horizon, is using AI to be able to tell when their call center employees are at the breaking point. Then they show them a selection of the employees photos along with a song the employee picked. Apparently it's working. Both employees and customers are happier.
If you work at a call center, you're automatically at a breaking point.
I'm not sure how those people do it. I had a 4 hour "interview" once at one and it was just utter hell. Although maybe the above is different, but this one was Cold Calling people. Ugh.
The department I was over, Quality Systems, had a small team of outbound call employees who conducted surveys, and it was miserable for them. Every call center I've ever been around has been terrible just because people are terrible over the phone. It's kind of like Internet anonymity.
I forgot--I once worked a second job at a call center for a hotel chain making reservations for people. That job would have actually been okay except that we were required to cross sell things that no one wanted. They just wanted to make a reservation, not hear a sales pitch for something else. I didn't work there for long. Two jobs are two too many for me 
I was just kidding about the jobs thing. The real reason I quit the second job was I got promoted to manage the Quality Systems department, which was a job that reported to the CEO. The CEO liked me because as a lowly analyst my manager had invited me to go with her to a board meeting, and I was bold enough to tell the board members that they were wrong. That customers don't, in fact, like having to go into a bank and that we needed to concentrate on alternatives like ATM's and Internet banking (which they were questioning the need for). This was either '95 or '96, and the old men wanted to get out of the InternetI forgot--I once worked a second job at a call center for a hotel chain making reservations for people. That job would have actually been okay except that we were required to cross sell things that no one wanted. They just wanted to make a reservation, not hear a sales pitch for something else. I didn't work there for long. Two jobs are two too many for me
True, it is better than doing nothing to help call center employees at all.
I also saw this article recently:
Ah call centre, i worked in several and all of them were high stress environments. it felt like i was a battery hen as soon as i put the phone down, it would ring before i even closed off the ticket.
Admittedly, when i first started out i enjoyed it as i was actually learning IT and also using the qualifications that had trained for. So it felt like progression. But still high stress environment, the office was a warehouse in the middle of no where and i was only there for 6 months as the company lost their contract and was letting everyone go.
My last one i was a contractor and management ruled using fear; "hit your target or you're out" Cue people logging absolute garbage to reach those KPIs rather then addressing the issue. in fact they say they're so busy, how was anyone supposed to develop experience/skills with no training ? Unsurprisingly new people lasted maybe a month or 2 people being turfed out. management were just out for themselves trying to make sure they looked good as opposed to, you know helping the team succeed. They were on some power trip, my manager forced me and my colleague (who sat opposite me) to switch seats. When we asked why and what was the point (it was a waste of bloody time as we're busy as it was), he just said to the words "i don't need to explain myself, i expect you to do it". unsurprisingly I lost a lot of respect with that prick.
other tales of woes:
We were tasked with reducing the call queue to x number to get back to training. When we did it, management reneged and we got nothing.
Being a contractor, i discovered that my employment company was screwing me over when it came to daily wages. i was being paid 20% less then other staff and i apparently was one of their top performers. When my employer tried to reason with the employment company they just said: "you want to pay johnway more money? pay US more money!" Which was stupid, other companies were paid the same amount and paid out the same amount. When they asked their reason? "Oh we operate in a high rent area and therefore we need more money". Couldn't switch my contract due to legal clauses so i was stuck with a wage that was less then everyone else till i resigned from that role. I figured it was a life lesson where i didn't negotiate hard enough. When that employment agency rang asking if i was looking for job opportunities and whether i could help, i promptly ignored them.
This makes me so happy. To think AI is taking furious idiots and making them sound reasonable and calm cracks me up. I just wish there were some notification so that the customer knew it was happening. They'd get even more angry and couldn't do anything about it.
Brian Boru
Moderator
On the contrary, it's great to hear something positive about AI usage—I know negative coverage is all the rage for headlines and coolness, but the constant drip-drip gets tiresome. Anything which helps with a dead-end job is a good and joyful thing in my book.
It's not that bad, relative to the worst jobs—I've never seen it listed among the top stressful jobs, which tend to be those with a lot of face-to-face interaction.
I have no idea what's listed as the top stressful jobs, but I know that people are nicer in person than they are over the phone.
Except for my wife. She'll grab you by the hair and drag you around.
Hackers claim to have carried off an enormous data heist on AMD, selling info on employee and customer information, future products and specs
Remember folks, nothing is 100% secure when you store it via a remote service.
Headline coming soon: Third-party hosting service goes bankrupt.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Shadow of the Erdtree review roundup: 'Recaptures all of the magic of playing Elden Ring for the first time'
Critics are heaping a Torrent of praise on Elden Ring's DLC.
Just pre-ordered for the first time in my life.
Family are dragging me away from home to the in-laws for the weekend. They know not what they do.
Frindis
Moderator
Need to find time to play through Elden Ring before the DLC. Right now I am playing Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom and that game is huuuuuuuge!
Intellectual property law has come for the word 'Meeple'
Not even the little wooden board game guys are safe.
What happens with stuff like this is that a person/company sees something that is really popular that they at least tangentially created and says, "THINK OF ALL THE MONEY!"
They then manage to get copyrights and start going after the users of whatever it is, and that's the end of it. People don't pay to use it. They just stop using it.
Brian Boru
Moderator
Yep, and without doubt there'd be a big backlash against Carcassonne, which would be a shame for such an iconic game. Since he's decided to apologize, maybe he got wind of same and decided on discretion.
I wonder what Klaus-Jürgen Wrede thinks—I thought the dev would hold the copyright rather than the pub.
Don't know. Publishing deals can be pretty predatory sometimes. It used to be common practice in video games that the publisher took over the IP.
Windows-powered Arm devices are compatible with 'more than 1,200 games at 30 fps or higher' and now support BattlEye and Denuvo
While early benchmarks seem disappointing for Arm-based Windows laptops, it looks like there are plenty of playable games at launch.
No thanks. Either every game works or none of them work, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to have to "hope" that a game will work.
Colif
Moderator
ARM opens up other doors such as new viruses that can't be traced by current AV programs...
I wonder how good defender is on ARM
its easy to ignore ARM on desktop since both AMD and Intel are choices there and almost all games work on them now.
Try harder. I don't care if laptops can't play all the games, I don't want one.
now combine an ARM CPU with a Intel GPU and play Russian roulette as to whether game will work.
I wonder how good defender is on ARM
its easy to ignore ARM on desktop since both AMD and Intel are choices there and almost all games work on them now.
Try harder. I don't care if laptops can't play all the games, I don't want one.
now combine an ARM CPU with a Intel GPU and play Russian roulette as to whether game will work.
Last edited:
AMD and Intel are still going to be in gaming laptops for a long time, I suspect, but I'm getting ready to build a new desktop, so it won't impact me as much anyway. Still want a good laptop for gaming in bed, though.
Colif
Moderator
My pc next to my bed. I don't need a laptop for that
only days i wish i had a laptop are stormy ones, and they not that common that getting a laptop ever became a logical purchase.
only days i wish i had a laptop are stormy ones, and they not that common that getting a laptop ever became a logical purchase.
Last edited:
Bit Reactor has a Star Wars tactical strategy game in the works, 15 XCOM veterans on its team, and an ambitious vision for the future of the genre
The latest Feature,/features,,features, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at PC Gamer
There's this tension in modern game design, isn't there: is it okay if a genre isn't for everyone? Are there types of games that the masses, the lower reaches of the IQ spectrum, are simply incapable of enjoying, and if so is that okay (not everyone has to like the same things) or is it a moral abomination that must be rectified by dumbing down that genre relentlessly until everything that made it interesting and special has been purged in the righteous flames of equity and inclusion? Turn-based tactics and immersive sims are the genres where I've seen this the most, but I'm sure there are others too. Oh well, hopefully this will be good despite their desire to make it “accessible”.
Shadow of the Erdtree review roundup: 'Recaptures all of the magic of playing Elden Ring for the first time'
Critics are heaping a Torrent of praise on Elden Ring's DLC.www.pcgamer.com
Just pre-ordered for the first time in my life.
Family are dragging me away from home to the in-laws for the weekend. They know not what they do.
Steam Deck?
Steam Deck.
Windows-powered Arm devices are compatible with 'more than 1,200 games at 30 fps or higher' and now support BattlEye and Denuvo
While early benchmarks seem disappointing for Arm-based Windows laptops, it looks like there are plenty of playable games at launch.www.pcgamer.com
No thanks. Either every game works or none of them work, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to have to "hope" that a game will work.
Definitely a little disappointing. Was hoping for an integrated graphics revolution, but was cautiously optimistic, given how prerelease stuff is often reported on and it seems that it is over hyped right now.
Steam Deck?
Steam Deck.
Bit Reactor has a Star Wars tactical strategy game in the works, 15 XCOM veterans on its team, and an ambitious vision for the future of the genre
The latest Feature,/features,,features, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at PC Gamer
There's this tension in modern game design, isn't there: is it okay if a genre isn't for everyone? Are there types of games that the masses, the lower reaches of the IQ spectrum, are simply incapable of enjoying, and if so is that okay (not everyone has to like the same things) or is it a moral abomination that must be rectified by dumbing down that genre relentlessly until everything that made it interesting and special has been purged in the righteous flames of equity and inclusion? Turn-based tactics and immersive sims are the genres where I've seen this the most, but I'm sure there are others too. Oh well, hopefully this will be good despite their desire to make it “accessible”.
I do agree with them that complexity doesn't equal depth, however. I've played plenty of complex, deep strategy games and they often end up feeling less satisfying to play, because there are so many numbers and esoteric rules to account for.
The older I get, the more I prefer stuff that just gets out of my way and let's me play, rather than being bogged down in the aforementioned.
That said, I do also think you're correct. The dumbing down and homogenization of everything today is pretty tedious and ends up just making everything bland and samey; everything is so expensive to create that it needs to appeal to the widest audience to be profitable.
Colif
Moderator
gets de ja vu reading above post
I think Kaamos might get complaints from family if he used a steam deck entire time he is away. especially to the in laws.
I don't think everything has to be playable by everyone mainly as people have different tastes. What is point in making a game open to someone if they don't want to play it anyway - you can't force people to like things. I see it pointless driving away your current audience to appeal to people who won't buy your product anyway. It isn't a zero sum game, you can keep old audience and attract new players.
Some games are so complicated you take one look at the set up screen and it should require an IQ test to just start a character.
Puzzle games don't have to be dumbed down to play them. Some things are meant to be challenges
I think Kaamos might get complaints from family if he used a steam deck entire time he is away. especially to the in laws.
we all have to be equally miserable. No having fun, some people out there don't know what fun is (mostly Publishers) and so no one is allowed to have any, as it wouldn't be fair.
I don't think everything has to be playable by everyone mainly as people have different tastes. What is point in making a game open to someone if they don't want to play it anyway - you can't force people to like things. I see it pointless driving away your current audience to appeal to people who won't buy your product anyway. It isn't a zero sum game, you can keep old audience and attract new players.
Some games are so complicated you take one look at the set up screen and it should require an IQ test to just start a character.
Puzzle games don't have to be dumbed down to play them. Some things are meant to be challenges
Time for some new in laws, probably.
I'm concerned that I won't be able to read the screen. I have a hard enough time on laptops. I've heard it has a "zoom" feature, though, but I really wish I could try one out before buying.
Right now I'm trying to figure out if the Lenovo Legion Go also has a zoom feature, as I'd prefer it over the Deck.
Colif
Moderator
Need (new) glasses?
I can't read my phone now without them... my 32 inch monitor is a blur without mine
eye sight main reason I bought a larger Digital Audio Player, to see screen.
I can read your post without them but would get a headache if i tried doing it like that all day
mount a tv to wall across from bed and use it? Guess it depends if you only person in room or not.
I can't read my phone now without them... my 32 inch monitor is a blur without mine
eye sight main reason I bought a larger Digital Audio Player, to see screen.
I can read your post without them but would get a headache if i tried doing it like that all day
mount a tv to wall across from bed and use it? Guess it depends if you only person in room or not.
Similar threads
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
-
-
Odd question regarding voice lines in games not playing on headphones...
- Started by ZedClampet
- Replies: 5
-
-
-
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram