Send us Fan Mail

Seven minutes. That is the invisible clock running behind a huge slice of modern customer service, and it changes everything about how work feels on the other side of the headset. Mike Williams of Sage of Quay Radio talks wiith Peter Tompkins, the filmmaker behind Disconnected: Voices from the Call Center, about what call center life actually looks like when you strip away the corporate recruiting pitch and the “we are family” posters.

Check out Sage of Quay Radio hosted by Mike Williams.

We dig into the machinery of the job: average handle time, hold-time limits, scripts that punish you for missing a single word, recorded calls scored by quality assurance, and the bizarre reality of being told to upsell someone who is already furious about a billing mistake. Peter shares how thin training can be, how hard it is to find real-time support when supervisors vanish into meetings, and why the stress turns into anxiety, migraines, self-medication, and a constant sense that you are never quite “right” no matter how hard you try.

From there, we zoom out to the business model and the culture. We talk about attrition that feels intentional, outsourcing and offshoring to lower-cost countries, union resistance, and why call centers can resemble modern sweatshops where the extraction is mental and emotional rather than purely physical. We also look ahead at AI customer support, what happens when bots can handle thousands of calls at once, and the uncomfortable question of who still gets to earn a living when automation replaces entire job categories.

If you have ever worked a support job, managed a team, or wondered why calling a big company can feel so miserable for everyone involved, this conversation will give you language for what you already sensed. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who has lived the call center grind, and leave a review with your take: which workplace metric has done the most damage where you work?

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Skating Bear Studios