Am I Just Lazy?

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For those who don't know, my job is to take customer service calls for the Walmart home office's call center. Disregarding the fact that I've never been verbally abused more in my life than when I started here, what bugs me the most is that the job never ends. No matter how many calls I take, there are always more. My managers don't like you to take breaks between calls, so you pretty much have to go from one call to another without any time to catch your breath.

Here's what I'm wondering: am I just being lazy? This is a desk job, which most people would say anyone would be lucky to have, but the fact that I'm unable to take a few minutes now and then to unwind irks me to no end. It's not like I'm doing physically strenuous work that could hurt me if I don't rest, so... yeah, am I just being lazy or this a valid concern?

Hmm...no, I don't think you are lazy. My friend used to work for a phone company call centre here in my town and she was abused by lots of callers every day. Her job was just that...taking calls, getting abused...taking more calls. She used to tell me all about it. No breaks unless the boss says it's lunch time. It sounded like hard work, but good on you for sticking at it. You're more patient than me.

I'm a lab worker at a minerals processing facility and 50% of my job is repetitive and menial work. Some of my work is very physically taxing and meant for stronger males but...sometimes I'm the only one there so I have to do it. Before I climbed the ladder a little bit I was doing 100% menial work BUT...my boss let us have regular breaks. Sometimes we would all just go back to the tea room, have a cup of tea and chat or read a book for 15 minutes. Now if you can't have breaks between calls, not even a 5 minute break to stretch your legs or whatever, then that is a pretty poor workplace. Also, how do you deal with taking calls from people all day?? That would drive me over the edge.

Walmart is not known for treating people well. Taking down Walmart-ism was a cornerstone of Bernie Sanders' campaign.

No it's not laziness, I do get periods of time when customers phone my pharmacy one after another to order meds on repeat prescriptions and as a person with sound/voice processing issues I find it very hard when I don't get an occasional break to do something else (also they mispronounce pretty much every drug name). At some point I usually want to scream and throw the phone Luckily I can run away to the bathroom or pretend I'm doing something else so another person can pick up the phone.
I don't think I could do your job, it would stress me out massively and I'd definitely have meltdowns later or periods of "don't speak to me!! I want silence, hours of silence!"
I just hate phones, I always have.

I would say that it's a mentally strenuous job, and the sort of job which is generally best avoided by aspies, actually. I couldn't do it. People, phones, stress...no.

For those asking how I stand it, I didn't start off doing this job. When I started I was working the evening shift for store support. That was way better, 1. associates aren't going to cuss out the home office, and 2. there are five, maybe six different kinds of problems we dealt with on that line. They wanted us to track a customer's order, or provide the ASN number so they can scan it in. Easy peasy. I'd been bugging my manager for a while about putting me on the morning shift, though, so she finally struck me a deal: if I switched over to CR, she'd put me on the morning shift. And like an idiot, I accepted.

And the worst part is that, technically, I'm still a store support agent. I'm a store support agent that takes nothing but CR calls. The home office knows that CR has a crappy job, so they pay them just a little bit more to entice them not to quit. But since I'm a SS agent that's just "filling in" for CR ("It's only until we get enough people to fill that queue!" they said, half a year ago) they essentially get a CR agent for the price of a SS agent.

I've been here over a year now, so I'm eligible to be promoted to different types of jobs if I apply for them, but therein lies another problem: the good jobs need a college degree, which I don't have. If I transferred to another department that doesn't need a degree, what I'm making now in the call center is more than most of them would be willing to start me at. That's another reason I stay here: they pay me surprisingly well. Not enough to make it worth the constant screaming and verbal abuse, but more than I expected. And I live in Bentonville, Arkansas. There's not many full time jobs to have here that AREN'T at Walmart, and I'm not moving away so I have to take what I can get. Who knows, maybe I can get transferred to a semi decent job. I don't have high ambitions, I just want to do something I don't hate with people I don't hate. The benefits team says they mostly take positive calls. The fraud prevention team only answers emails, no calls at all. So one of those might be better. We'll just have to wait and see.

Emails would be much better, you can even have little template parts to copy&paste and fill in with individual information. I used to negotiate prices and do all sorts of product management deals via email when I was a purchasing manager for a mobile phone accessories company. I could do anything by email, but on the phone... erm... hi... so... prices... high...
I swear I lose 30 IQ points after picking up the phone.

There was an old school sentiment that "real work" was making things and that "chatting on the phone" was just wasting time. But, those days are gone. We have robots to make things. Or people in 3rd world countries at really low wages. People pay real money these days for good customer service. At least the ones that can afford it. If you are a premium customer at a bank you get a special number to call in for prompt service.

You should get a 15 minute break every 2 hours in an 8 hr day. Do you get to ask for at least a short break to take a bathroom break.

We do get fifteen minute breaks, but those aren't every two hours. Just like the days I work change every week, my daily schedule changes too. Like today, my first break isn't for three hours after I start. Lunch is 2 1/2 hours after that. My second break is an hour and a half after lunch ends, and then I go home an hour after that. They let us take two four-minute bathroom breaks, but those aren't really enough when you're being screamed and cussed at without stop for hours on end when you come back. I'm not asking for another official break. What I mean is that it'd be nice if I could take two or three minutes between, say, every five calls to catch my breath. But the managers don't like that. They'll complain if it takes more than thirty seconds for you to answer another call.

maybe its just not the right for you. you feel uncomfortable talking on the phone and feel like its overwhelming, ask to switch to another position. Wal Mart has a reputation of not being the best place to work. employees have complained about management.

The problem with finding a new job is that I live in Northwest Arkansas. We have Walmarts on every street corner the way most towns have Starbucks. 90% of the jobs around here are for Walmart, or at least provide some kind of service to Walmart. The JB Hunt home office is here too, but I blew my chances with them a couple years ago when I was hired to work their mail room and then quit two months later. If I go on Indeed or someplace like that, jobs typically fall into four categories: 1. Part time jobs I couldn't pay rent with, 2. Walmart jobs. Walmart jobs everywhere! 3. This entry level position requires twelve college degrees and a resume that includes going to the moon, and 4. Hey you! Yeah, you! Wanna drive a truck? We'll hire literally anyone!

I mean, I'm an aspie. Unless someone's willing to pay me to sit at home, read books, and play video games, there aren't many jobs that "fit" me. As much as I hate taking calls, my best option for ever not taking calls is to keep taking calls until I get a job where I don't have to take calls anymore.

Can't offer much in the way of advice I'm afraid, but fwiw it doesn't sound to me like you're being lazy at all. The type of work you're describing does sound relentless and mentally stressful, especially for an aspie.

if you really want to find something that fits you and what you can do, try looking for job in another town or state. try being an adult and move to a new place, make new friends.

I already did that. Lost my job, had to work the crappiest job I've ever had for half a year (yes, even worse than CR), and then got hired at the home office back in my hometown so I moved back in with my parents. I've finally gotten my own apartment again, and I'm pretty well off despite not liking my job. So no, I'm not moving away.

I'm in rural Australia. #3 and #4 are about 75% of jobs here!