Racism and the Call Center

Call center is a booming business in the Philippines. With thousands of Filipinos working in the call center industry, this business is considered as prime meat for taxes. Call center workers enjoy above average compensation compared to those working in an 8-5 job.

But what do these workers get in return of getting above average compensation?

Ridicule, mockery, racism, these are the few things call center workers get from their customers. Caucasian and Asian customers alike treat Filipinos like they are a piece of garbage. They call them names, threaten to sue them and just blatantly demoralize Filipinos in general. It’s not just Filipinos who experienced such things. Indians get the same treatment as well.

In the five years that I’ve worked in a call center, I’ve been called names that are far beyond my imagination. Threatened to be sued a lot of times and I have heard blatant degradation of the Filipino race.

Before I started working in this business, I have a high regard for Americans, Europeans and our own Asian brothers and sisters. I can’t point out exactly what the reason why; probably it's the color of their skin, hair and eyes or the shape of their nose. Or probably the American twang and efficiency in the English language. All these things were in my mind until I started doing technical support for the North American and APAC regions. I've found out that they are not as efficient in the English language as I thought they were. Oftentimes, they have the wrong grammar and most of the time, wrong spelling for words. I’ve learned that they are not very bright in fact; they could not even grasp the simplest instruction to as to "click on the screen." Their advantage is that they can afford to buy computers and expensive gadgets whilst common Filipinos cant.

But being able to buy a certain product does not give anybody the right to step down on the people providing him or her with support to the best of their abilities. I must admit that the product our customers bought is not the best, not perfect, does not comply to their requirements but is there actually a product out there that's flawless, perfect and always comply to everybody's specification? Why would customers vent out their frustration to people who are merely assisting them in troubleshooting their problems when in fact the problem is that they're too dumb to operate a computer?

As you see the problem is not the people on the other end of phone. It is not the product that the customers bought. The problem is their attitude. They think highly of themselves that oftentimes, they think they are a superior race.

Nobody has the right to degrade any race. Whether we speak in a halting English, sleep and eat with the rats, has a corrupt president and belongs to a third world country, we are definitely not a third-rate race. No one can classify the race based on education, skin color or financial capacity. All of us are equal.

Being a Filipino is not a handicap; in fact, it should be considered a gift. Working in a call center is not a curse but a blessing.





Note: This is the author’s opinion and does not reflect all others who are working in the customer service industry.