My Workplace Horror Story

Everyday was hell, being a bill collector was worse than being in debt. Working in bill collection is not an easy thing to do. I was 21 years old and need a job while I went to college. I worked 20 hours a week for a bank doing bill collection. I don't recommend working in bill collection, it is very stressful and you put yourself in situations of abuse.

As a bill collector, you are scum. You end up feeling this way at some point. You know that you are doing this job in the best interest for the bank. The people who you call, they owe the money that you are calling about, but somehow you end up feeling bad for bothering them. These are all rational feelings that you have when you are collecting past due loans. You work around 200 accounts in a day and 95% of the customers are legitimately past due. The 5% that would fall under "bank error," makes your own mind wonder if you could be caught in a situation sometime in the future.

At least once a day I would feel like crying. I would call an account that was still in a deceased person's name. I call the residence and I asked for the person, not knowing that they are passed away. The person who answers the phone has 2 ways to react to this situation. The first scenario would be for them to just explain to me that the person is no longer with us and state the person who has taken over the payments. The second reaction is the one that made this job a living hell. The caller would start crying. I would immediately back out of the conversation and wished them a peaceful evening. After laying my phone headset on my desk, I would stare at my computer monitor for a few moments attempting to hold in my emotions. I was responsible for bringing back painful memories of their lost ones. I have honestly never gotten over this.

I worked as a bill collector for the next two years. Unfortunately, I was good at the job. I was even promoted to High Balance collections. In January 2004, my office was merging with an office in Cleveland, OH. Since I just started a semester of college in Indiana, I couldn't move with the company. I was a happy man.