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I used to work in a call center. I'm not female, but I knew a female or two who worked there. There was no dress code. There was aggressive monitoring, but there was a script and the cordial demeanor becomes automatic very quickly. The pay and job security wouldn't justify taking off for a month, though the turnover was high enough that after coming back, if they were still in business you could probably return to work right away.

True, I worked in a number of call centres a few years back. There is a variety of cultures in these places, from having to turn up in a suit and tie and account for your time down to 10 second intervals to super laid back.

More formal places did tend to pay better and provide better equipment though. I had experiences in some where you had to twiddle with the headphone wire and hold it in the right position or you wouldn't be able to hear the customer.

The market for call centre workers back in ~2007 was highly liquid, if you got sick of one job after a few months it was no big deal to just quit on the spot and be able to walk into another one within a week or two.

I agree with you.

The one thing I can never figure out is why managers of some types of companies run them the way they do. Why couldn't a call center employee work with a headset from a van and wear whatever they please? There's all sorts of strange practices that some of these companies do. Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test before being employed for example- yet that's what things like call centers do.

I want my employees to be happy, because they are the people that make the company work. When I talk to a manager of a company like this - they act like I've never managed anything before and just 'dont get it'.

I work for the largest (I believe) 'callcenter in the cloud' companies. http://www.liveops.com/

You can work from anywhere, as long as you have a good phone line and good Internet.

Why couldn't a call center employee ... wear whatever they please?

Presumably the managerial types are trying to help cultivate a "professional" environment.

Never in a million years would I ask an employee to submit to a drug test

I understand the personal freedoms angle, but I can also sympathize with employers who are tired of discovering that guy they hired last week is actually a raging meth head.

What does it matter if their employees are meth heads, they shouldn't have to be tested.

If they are unproductive, look like shit, have poor time management, have mood swings etc then they are a liability to their employer because of those things, not because they "do drugs".

On the other hand if they are productive, are professional, [any other positive attribute] and contribute to their employer, does it matter if they are on drugs at the time?

Granted, I've never meet anyone that are actually functional members of society once they start abusing something like meth, but my point is that employees should be judged purely on their performance in the workplace or how they contribute.

I assume it's more about predicting these things before employment begins - someone might look ok at the interview but if you found out traces of drugs in his blood that could be an indicator that this is not their usual state.

Basically we're talking about low-skilled jobs that always have plenty of applicants, filtering a bit too many people isn't that big of a deal when there're still plenty of others remaining afterwards.

It's just a cheap initial filter, as long as it's better than completely arbitrary it's probably beneficial to have.

That depends, Pot is detected by a drugs test if the person has used within around 3 weeks.

So you would get a positive reading from somebody who went to a party 2 weekends ago and took a couple of hits from a joint.

Not that it matters much, and this is only anecdotal but I had friends who would smoke pretty frequently. A lot of call centers, and retail spots would drug test. My friends would still get the job if they got past the initial interview. It seems like most companies are more interested in harder drugs, which I can understand.

On topic: I think that if you're looking for a cost effective way to live, do what someone said earlier and move to a less prominent neighborhood. This seems like it would be more along the lines of "fun to do for a couple weeks".

Because employers believe that P(workplace violence/poor time management/etc | meth head) > P(workplace violence/poor time management/etc).

Do you disagree that this is the case?

You've never had to deal with someone who came to work while on drugs, have you?

Someone can go from comparatively normal to crazy enough to freak everyone out and maybe get someone hurt in no time flat. That's a bit of a problem, especially given that some people work at places where accidents like slitting one's wrist wide open, crushing one's hand and being killed by an item dropped by a forklift happen a little too regularly, even to people who are not thus impaired.

I think the GGP was referring mainly to workplaces that don't involve dealing with dangerous equipment. Besides there's a big difference between smoking some pot outside of work hours and coming to work under the influence of meth.

When I worked in low paid (mainly call centre) jobs, people coming to work high was a pretty common thing. The jobs were easy and repetitive enough that it didn't affect performance at all. In fact if they had started drug testing they would probably have lost many of their best employees.

Drug tests are much easier, cheaper and quicker. You don't have to risk putting them in the workplace and then wait till they screw up. You don't have to wait for the manager to look at their behaviour and make a call. You don't have to worry that the manager might know the person and be easy on them. One quick test and it filters out lots.

The call center I used to work at had no dress code and no drug tests. In fact, almost everyone who worked there, other than myself, was constantly stoned.

Good to know we shouldn't have pleasure so long as there is any man who can't share in it.

[EDIT] single father/middle class technocrat here, living paycheck to paycheck. Many of my friends make less than I do. By this measure of hubris, I should not go out to eat so long as fellow engineers are looking for work.

As anyone who has had my comments inflicted on them long enough can tell you, if I had meant to point out that people shouldn't enjoy living out of a van (if that's there thing), I would have made that point, repeatedly, in painful detail. That's not what I was saying.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you said people shouldn't enjoy living out of a van.

I meant to draw attention to you writing that living in a van was an insincere (glib) and unrealistic (romantic) undertaking.

>Good to know we shouldn't have pleasure so long as there is any man who can't share in it.

Sounds as a very good, if difficult to attain, guideline for the improvement of society.

And very close to the original message of Christianity too (I'm talking milleniums ago).

"Glib is the word I would use, for romanticizing a scenario"

I would use glib in the same way that people romanticize people living in poverty. Particularly single moms with good kids living in the ghetto. Single mom works so hard holding down 3 jobs cleaning offices and her kids all work hard if only they were given a chance and didn't live in the projects. (Watch http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/ on netflix to see a little back story)

While that situation exists of course (and in fact I remember growing up commercials for the united negro college fund)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfwpeHzc8ks

...most likely in reality (drive through any poor neighborhood) there is something else going on that produces the behavior that is observed.

I'm impressed that you're able to do a sociological study of "the others" as you drive through their neighborhoods, probably with your windows up and doors locked.

Non-snarkily, I think people are the same everywhere, mostly good and hard working with occasional cheating when they think they can get away with it. From my personal anecdata, I've seen both shady deplorable acts and admirable selfless acts from millionaires, middle class, working poor, and even from homeless people on the street.

I do think that the fact that poor people have to rely on help from their social network more often makes them more humble in general.

"Non-snarkily, I think people are the same everywhere, mostly good and hard working"

If that is the case then why do I keep my windows up when I drive through those neighborhoods. Are you saying I have nothing to fear driving my new expensive car through, say, many areas of Newark NJ or areas such as the "Badlands" in Phila PA? Or that I am safe to walk the streets in those areas? And if those areas are so great and wonderful places to raise families why are the actual good hard working people that live there trying to get out to provide better for their children?

I have no idea about those neighborhoods, but I've spent plenty of time in east Oakland without incident, statistically the 4th most dangerous city in the country. No matter how much crap you hear in the news it's not an actual war zone, most people lead normal day to day lives. From my experience people want to get out because the government services like schools and police suck, not because they hate their neighbors.

"but I've spent plenty of time in east Oakland without incident, statistically the 4th most dangerous city in the country."

You do what you can do to protect yourself. While crime can and does happen everywhere there are places that you are more likely to be a victim of a crime. Probability wise of course.

Even with respect to car theft you will find that insurance companies charged rates depending on where you live and even where you park your car (garage etc.) There is a basis for this you know.

Let's suppose, for the sake or argument, that 40% of the population of the "Badlands" are truly evil murderous thieves, who have no compunction firing a pistol into your car as you drive by, and suppose further that every day each one of them partakes of this pastime.

A horrible, dangerous place, seething with evil, yes? Far worse than the reality, no doubt, but let's go with it.

What do you make of the other 60%?

What do you make of the other 60%?

That they're good people who allowed evil to triumph by doing nothing to stop it?

Yes, it is safe to drive in your expensive car through Newark or to walk the street in north Philly.

The badlands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sngBcF5M-AU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Badlands

As an outside observer, the effect of white collar crime would appear to have hit Americans far harder than the crime discussed here - and it's effects have been felt world wide too. Behaviors allowed and encouraged in big banking have been very destructive to lives. And I'll make a safe net that the perpetrators lived in so-called good areas. So while worrying about being car-jacked in the badlands, behavior in the good lands sees your company fail, job lost and car repossessed. Perhaps a touch overwrought, but another angle to consider.

If that is the case then why do I keep my windows up when I drive through those neighborhoods.

Because you are paranoid or watch too much TV maybe?

The fact that you feel in danger, does not mean you actually are, and inversely just because you feel safe does not mean that you are. You are vastly more likely to hurt yourself by crashing your car than by someone else attacking you after seeing that you have your windows down.

This goes for most things really. In terms of injury, the most dangerous person in most people's lives is themselves.

I grew up in extreme poverty on a very dangerous street. My father died when I was a child, and with half an income, my mom was forced to work several jobs to support herself and 5 children. The only place we could afford to live was the "ghetto". My siblings and I worked hard each day, with no electricity on some days, no running water on others.

Even with this hard work, only 2 of my siblings have managed to excel to middle class or beyond. None of us have ever been arrested or addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Why did the 3 children advance, while 2 are still struggling? It is because when my father died, my younger 2 siblings were 3 and 4 years old. We moved to the bad neighborhood the year after, and they grew up with no realistic model of "success" with which to strive. The model they were exposed to was that of my mother's new role - take on as many back-breaking jobs as possible just to barely scrape by. My younger brothers work VASTLY harder than I do, with little to show for the effort.

I tell this story as a contrast to your analysis. While poverty breeds desperation (you are definitely more likely to get robbed of your luxury items while in a bad neighborhood), it also adds a grit that is hard to describe. I saw children of Crack-addicted prostitutes making sure that they got themselves and siblings to school each morning. I saw good, honest kids who had little expectation from themselves, or from the world at large. And they achieved (and received) their expectations.

I think its easy to romanticize any situation, but I would seriously implore you to reconsider your preconceived notion on the inhabitants of these low income neighborhoods. The more widespread this belief, the fewer intelligent people willing to work to fix these difficult issues.

Cultural imprinting, basically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_%28psychology%29

If HN had a "bestof", I'd submit this.

First let me say that I feel bad for your situation and what happened to your father.

But you say "fewer intelligent people willing to work to fix these difficult issues" juxtaposed against "2 are still struggling? It is because when my father died, my younger 2 siblings were 3 and 4 years old. We moved to the bad neighborhood the year after, and they grew up with no realistic model of "success" with which to strive."

So what have the 3 children who advanced (including you) done to help the 2 that did not? I'm curious because you are suggesting that there is something that an outsider can do (and surely they can do something agreed) so I'd like to know what someone in that situation does to help their own family?

On another note do you also feel that part of the problem is perhaps having more kids than you can support? Depending on your income it would generally be easier to provide a good lifestyle for 2 kids then for 5, correct? Don't take offense I simply would like to know your thoughts.

My fathers death was not expected, and, while tight, we were able to live fine before he died. Two incomes turned to one as us kids grew older, taller, more needy. I don't think it's an offensive question, and my situation influenced me to stop at 2 kids.

Also, I get rather preachy with my brothers about how I believe they should proceed with their lives... And they listen, but it's a bit hard to change how people see the world.

Most people living in poverty have 0 jobs (and are not looking for one), not 3.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf

The belief in the hardworking poor person who can't get ahead is also a romanticization of poverty.

> It is interesting also to note that the ability to lead any kind of normal or predictable life in this fashion is itself a privilege.

My brother's definition of rich is the ability to control your own schedule.

And yours?

Never really thought about it, so I guess a couple million in the bank.