[bradshaw1965]

<<The existence of call-center work, which is intrinsically dehumanizing and unrelentingly laborious, is considered a failure of our society

The people in the article find it one of the best jobs available and a path to a middle class lifestyle for their area.

[godelski]

I've worked at a call center, it fucking sucks. Similar to retail you are the one who has to deal with the anger and frustration of customers due to poor company policies. What makes it worse is that you're a faceless entity on the other side of a magical voice box rather than face to face, in public, where people are more likely to watch their actions and how public responds to that. I'd definitely agree that it can be very dehumanizing. But there are plenty of people who enjoy the job too. Generally I've seen for those people that it is about the money and that they get to sit in an office with air conditioning.

Both things can be true. Call it Stockholm Syndrome to the economy or whatever, but things can be dehumanizing while people simultaneously feel lucky to have said work. It could be worse, after all.

The bigger question is if we are working on parallel paths to give these displaced workers equal or better opportunities to support themselves. Be that new jobs, avenues for them to educate themselves, basic income, or whatever combination of things raises the economic floor.

I do also fear that people will call these people dumb for choosing a career that could "so obviously be automated" but prior to a year ago their biggest fear would be outsourcing to India or Brazil. I wouldn't expect this type of person to even believe it was a realistic possibility until the last 6 months, once this stuff started to hit mainstream. I'll make a prediction that we'll see them in vogue within the next year or two. I also wouldn't be surprised if we see similar sentiment in the comments.

[TheCleric]

I've had a call center job and it sucked. It also paid twice as much as any other job I'd had to that point until I got a job in software.

I couldn't do it, but I can definitely see why it would have a high upside for some.

[darkclouds]

I would not be surprised if insurance companies who get claimants to call in, deliberately put people through these voice activated systems simply to listen in and see if their story is straight. Putting them on hold when going through the details is another way for the insurance company to listen in and see if their story is straight. People are lulled into that sense of safety that they cant be heard when on hold.

I've listened into conversations whilst someone is ringing my number, its quite interesting the conversations that go on at a company before the customer answers the phone!

Youtube reminds me the voice recognition and thus subtitles is not that good!

[noobermin]

I honestly don't understand why people demean customer service operators. It seems to be stressful work, but I have countless times been saved by operators. They are a life-line. AI tools are as useful as a google search, and perhaps just a little more, and a lot of customer service people who just follow a script are not much more helpful. But clearly some operators are a godsend cannot replace by AI at this time.