De Facto

Day begins at the strike of midnight. While everyone is asleep, I log on to the Internet to get the latest news at work. First order of business is to read the emails exchanged between the team and the client. Eight hours is not enough to cover all divisions in a 24-hour work operation. Whether by pure luck or merely a temporal downturn, the Argentinian supervisor seldom corresponds with the centre lately. The boss is relieved. I feel neglected. At the back of my head, the strange lull hints the Tango gods have missed their steps these days.

Work starts at six thirty but I show up between seven to nine in the morning given the insomnia I experience these days. The boss never complains. He never sees my activities - only the reports I send before ending my day late in the afternoon. He never says anything so long as I attend the weekly meetings set from Tuesday to Thursday. We don't talk much, unlike during the mini-conferences we had before. Nobody dares challenge the boss or ponder his decisions. Gone are the scrupulous attention to details or the fiery debates which lasted for hours when the mistress was still around. Everything seem stale nowadays.

Going back to the daily grind, I get back to the emails first thing in the morning. Then I would open a page leading to my blog. I read comments; I read other entries. In a boxed-up realm where connections are hard to find, cyberspace has virtually become my window to the outside world.

I read the news to keep abreast of current events. Conrado de Quiros stirs my soul before it gets pummeled by the deluge of workload, which I seem to ignore when receiving no instructions. Strange, but I seldom get commands even when milady was still around. Just the same, they got used to my own process. What is necessary is to know the account by heart.

Analysis has become my expertise. Metrics come from the high lords, which I make everyone comply without facing any resistance. I keep track of key performance indexes with a zeal close to being fanatic. I write emails to lecture agents who badly perform. I make corrections when necessary - even squeezing my brain to come up with good dialogues to use. I secretly celebrate when reading good turnovers, and hide my disappointments when they fail the standards. Sometimes I wonder if I have replaced the Argentinian supervisor who used to push us to improve our quality or had she abandoned us in favor of looking after her turf. (Note: we work alongside a bunch of foreign agents, who lately got less work because of us.)

Holding the fort alone and without anyone to look over my shoulder, the challenge of putting up a front becomes more and more tiresome as time passes. Growing detached from agents and team leaders; ambivalent towards other analysts who have their accounts to keep vigil; haunted by wakefulness at night and somnolence during the day; trading off tens of catnaps instead of producing more results which seldom get noticed until the concern is raised directly by the Rioplatense gods;

Feeling abandoned and yet compelled to stay put in a post that no one likes to take over; Underpaid yet empowered to twist and bend the fate of three dozen subordinates who needs to be towed in line; Underperforming, yet longing to find a purpose in life.

Realizing

while reviewing some logs only to learn the gargantuan work ahead | Frustrated that a lot of agents still fail to pay attention to what the clients required | Hopeless to find no one to air his case | Longing for a surrogate mother to bitch around him again.

It's lonely up there when you are the de-facto head of your account.