At the moment, I'm working a temporary job for a local call centre. It could be worse. 3 weeks of training for 2 weeks on the phone, and just enough money to get me by. I've worked worse jobs, that's for certain.

(Especially considering that as I write this, it's my third day on the production floor and I've only taken 1 call. Yeah, I've definitely worked worse jobs!)

One thing became very clear to me early on, though. There was no screening done for this job. People were hired because positions needed to be filled. There was no quality control, and unfortunately, so many seats needed to be filled that the only people who didn't get through the training class were the ones who left voluntarily.

As a result, there's one person in particular in my group who is still here when she clearly shouldn't be. Every day she shows up for her shift, I'm honestly surprised that she came. I fighured she would have given up by now.

I don't say this to be mean. I say it to be honest. Only a few days ago she had me sit with her and coach her on things that the entire class had been doing for the past week and a half. What she had been doing every day along with them. She would learn things, then quickly forget them and get confused. I talked to our trainer about it, and he'd already practically washed his hands of her, because he knew there was no hope of being able to teach her properly.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the authority to deny her access to the phones, so unless she quits, she'll keep on coming. And keep on being confused.

This incident really got me thinking. Plenty of people go for interviews thinking they'll get the job, that they'll do fine, and end up being refused a position anyway. In some cases, this may seem unfair. Workplaces often don't give people a chance to prove themselves. They just see a person for a half-hour interview and base it all on that, and passing interviews often relies more of one's social skills than the skills they'll be using in the actual job. I myself have been refused plenty of jobs that I'm sure I could do well at, if only they'd give me the chance to prove myself.

On the other hand, without job screening, situations like this one arise. If there had been an emphasis on screening and quality for this job, perhaps the poor woman I mentioned earlier wouldn't be stressing herself out trying to learn something she's unsuited for, and she wouldn't be frustrating those around her. Perhaps less people would have been hired, but in all liklihood it would have balanced out in the end, since the people that would be here would be the ones who not only wanted to be here but would be ones who are comfortable and confident with being here.

We lost about half our training class. There are another 3-4 people, out of the current 20, who probably shouldn't be here for various reasons. Most of those reasons essentially boil down to the fact that they're either not suited to call centre work, or that they don't have the skills to have properly absorbed what was taught in the training class.

I have always been a firm believer in quality over quantity. I would rather have 1 thing of high quality than 20 things of low quality. And as horrible as it sounds when applying that to people, this, to me, is a clear case where quality should have been more of a concern than it was.

Maybe this woman did think she could do well at the job if she was given the chance. Nobody can fault her for that. In fact, more power to her for believing in herself and wanting her chance. But at the end of this, when I apply for my next job and I don't get it (I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic; I know I won't get every job I apply for), I'm going to remember this. Maybe I thought I could do a good job, and maybe I actually could do a good job, but maybe other people could do better jobs. Not being hired doesn't mean I'm unsuited for a thing; it just means that other people were better suited to it. A workplace has a right to demand quality in their employees, after all.

What I used to think of as unfair now suddenly becomes much more understandable to me. In applying quality control to the hiring process, in looking at a job as something to work hard at and be proud of instead of something that just needs warm bodies to fill open positions, situations like the one my coworker is in could be avoided. The company doesn't spend time paying and training an employee who can't handle the workload, and the potential employee doesn't have to spend time feeling lost and upset and like a failure.

It's a difficult line to walk, but I have greater sympathy for the companies I apply to than I did in the past. This has been a learning experience for me.

I can only hope it's been as much of one for her.