As a CSR at Telus, I would say that the role often felt lacking in purpose, and the work became repetitive, monotonous, and generally like a dead end once you were fully used to it. Most of the time, after completing my assigned tasks, there was nothing productive left to do, which I consider a disadvantage, though this also relates partly to my own work style. I was given two monitors and a desktop instead of a laptop, which felt unnecessary for the level of responsibilities involved and limited my mobility, since it prevented me from changing work locations easily.
There were also no additional self-improvement benefits such as Udemy or Coursera. Instead, they offered a Bookster subscription, which I don’t believe many employees actually used. Bonuses were quite low—around 60 euros per year in total, divided between Easter and Christmas. As in any customer-facing job, I occasionally had to deal with aggressive or impolite individuals, as well as strict response time expectations. Fortunately, because the work was email-based, these situations were manageable.
As a side note, the other project I worked on, as a Content Moderator at Telus, was extremely challenging in terms of management style. The level of micromanagement was very high, despite the team seeming friendly at first. They monitored every second after a 15-minute break ended, and you were required to log each break individually in their system, along with a single 30-minute lunch break. This meant you couldn’t simply step away for an hour; instead, you had to return to the desktop, log back in, and then start the next break. The level of control felt excessive and unnecessarily rigid.
I was considered “one of the fortunate ones” for working on what management described as the easiest project available in my country, Romania. Based on their own statements, the other projects were said to be extremely demanding, stressful, and generally exhausting, both mentally and physically.
