By Karen Lema (Reuters)
MANILA (Reuters) - Bernadette, Claidel, Ted and Layne are relaxing after work with a few bottles of cold beer and some cigarettes in a bar beside their Manila office.
It's 8 a.m.
"After working the night shift, we are very stressed out and want to unwind," said Layne, who, like his drinking buddies, works as a call centre agent in the Philippine capital and who declined, like the others, to give his full name.
A booming outsourcing industry is generating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenues but many of its young employees are turning to caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol to deal with unsociable hours and demanding, sometimes abusive, callers.
"I worry when I go to the call centres that we are spawning a generation of chain smoking, coffee addicts or worse, chain smoking beer drinkers," Rosalie Montenegro, senior vice president of the Call Centre Business Group under Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) told Reuters.
Workers often deal with up to 70 calls during their 11-hour shift, and admit that while the work is not physically tiring, it's wearing them down mentally and emotionally.
Customers cursing and insulting them are all in a day's work.
Claidel said one client accused her of "stealing jobs from the Americans" while Bernadette said a caller from New York told her he thought Filipinos "live in trees".
"Physically, it is not so difficult because you are just sitting down, but it's a different story when you get cursed at," said Claidel, while munching bar snacks.
"No one from my family and friends has ever cursed me."
PALPITATIONS
The Philippines, with a large pool of English speakers and cultural affinity with the United States, is developing as a strong second to India in the global outsourcing market, employing 200,000 people, mostly graduates fresh out of college.
Total industry revenues jumped 50 percent to $3.6 billion in 2006 and the government estimates they could rise to $12.1 billion by 2010 as companies shift higher-earning jobs overseas.
While the hours are long, the pay is good.
Entry-level wages are around 13,000 Philippine pesos ($275) per month, nearly double the minimum wage, and can quickly rise to around 20,500 pesos, excluding bonuses.
Dondie, who works for a global outsourcing firm in Manila, earns triple what he was getting as a university employee. The higher pay means he's able to compensate his family for missing birthdays and celebrations because of work.
But the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. working hours to service the U.S. and European markets is tiring and coffee and caffeine loaded energy drinks have become a staple on agents' desks.
"After ten months of drinking coffee, I had to stop because I was already having palpitations," Dondie said.
An open plan office full of twentysomethings creates a hectic social life and Jose Torres, who joined PLDT's call centre to deal with employee relations, said new graduates would always party hard, regardless of their occupation.
"It goes with the generation of people between 18 and 25 years old who comprise the call centre workforce," he said.
PLDT is trying to make sure staff at Ventus, its call centre operation, live healthy lives by building them a gym and spa and setting up dormitories close to its offices. But Torres said the workers were ultimately responsible for their own well-being.
"We have to understand that the world is a global environment operating on a 24-hour basis," he said. "You can let the system swallow you or you can organise your life."
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