I swear this is not venting of past bitterness. Okay, maybe a little.

[pearwaldorf]

So apparently WaMu is so broke from financing sub-prime mortgages that in addition to taking a huge earnings hit, they're eliminating coffee, hot chocolate, and plastic cutlery from the break rooms. If the call centers in Albion and San Antonio are anything like the one I worked at in Bothell (we're not even going to address the ones in Manila or Costa Rica), you're lucky if you have an espresso stand that opens any time before 7:00 and closes down at 5:00 on the dot, which is completely useless if you work outside those hours. These places are located in desolate business parks where you will be lucky to find a McDonald's within driving distance of your pathetically short lunch (which they will give you hell for coming back late from), much less a Starbucks. And it seems really wah-wah at first, but we are talking about taking coffee away from call center workers. It is by caffeine alone that they manage to not screw up your accounts even more than they have already.

It's not so much the fact that there's no more goddamn coffee, but what this action says to the people at the bottom: You don't matter to us enough to even keep your beverages. This is what companies do when they're desperate, out of ideas, and eager to show the shareholders they're tightening belts and such, despite the fact that I haven't heard about Kerry Killinger taking a pay cut or anything. I suppose it could be worse--at BofA they're probably only keeping soap in the bathrooms because it's mandated by law, and the CEO is still getting $28 mil.

Comments

C is for Caffeine and that's good enough for me ...

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

taking coffee away from call center workers

Isn';t there something in the Geneva Convention about that? No, seriously, WTF. I mean, I have my own coffee machine because the vending machine coffee sucks donkey ass, but. Hells no you can't have my caffeine!