Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Arizona Call Center Worker on Life Support After 15-Hour Shift
While widespread vaccinations across the U.S. are bringing some hope that the end of the pandemic is near, Americans are stressed, depressed and uncertain. While deserved recognition has been laid at the feet of essential workers such as healthcare professionals, police and emergency personnel and grocery store workers, another group has been suffering and receiving less recognition: call center workers.
“Customer experience has never been more important or more difficult,” wrote Sagi Eliyahu for Forbes. COVID-19 has pushed many call centers beyond their limits. Many customers and employees are stressed. Some businesses — particularly service ones like banks and insurance companies — have seen a surge in customer demand. Workloads are increasing, and customer preferences seem to change with the wind.”
In Arizona, call center stress and overtime may have contributed to the collapse and hospitalization of a worker. Pamela Cooper, 49, had worked a shift of more than 15 hours at Phoenix's 911 dispatch center, according to the Phoenix News Times, though she was still suffering from lingering after-effects of the COVID-19 virus herself. A 20-year veteran of the dispatch center, she had returned to work after being out recovering from the virus for six weeks. Though she was still feeling unwell, she had used all her paid leave and was supporting her mother as well as her husband, who was out of work.
"I can't breathe at all right now...ugh," Cooper texted her mother around 3:30 p.m. on Friday during her lunch break, according to the News Times. Cooper’s 10-hour shift was over at 7:30 p.m., but she was ordered to stay on until nearly 1:00 a.m. because of call center call volume. Her protests that she was feeling unwell were met with orders to remain at her post or get written up. Cooper collapsed at home shortly after her shift ended. Though she remains on life support, she is not expected to survive.
Cooper’s mother, Shirley Ryan, blames the city for not doing more to protect her daughter from COVID-19 and for forcing her to stay on when she was unwell. The News Times article noted that the emergency dispatch call center was already understaffed when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Currently, 51 of the 299 positions between the police and fire departments, which operate separate dispatches, are unfilled.
Edited by Maurice Nagle