deutsche bank 24/bonn (2)

text in german

(18.12.00 / a shorter version appeared in the hotlines-leaflet no. 2) This is a summarised version of an interview with a telephone-worker published in the hotlines-leaflet no. 2 on the intensification of work (December 2000):

There are about 15 to 20 percent full timers at the Deutsche Bank 24 call center in Bonn. The rest is part time, mostly students and single parents. The wages are about DM 19 an hour with a scale up to DM 23,50. After the merger of Deutsche Bank and Bank 24 the departments were reorganised and the agents got more tasks... without extra payments! The "account service" (transfers...) became the "account- and securities-service". The agents have to deal with trading securities whenever the securities department is blocked by to many calls. Later more tasks were added like loans, credit cards etc. The department that dealt with that so far ("banking service") was liquidated. Furthermore, the agents in the "account- and securities-service" have to take the overflow of the "online service" (dealing with questions on online-banking). All that without proper training.
Many workers have refused tasks and kept on tranferring calls to other departments whenever possible. They are being put under pressure through quality control. Once a month a "coach" listens to calls and rates the "professional performance". And once a month a "supervisor" listens in as well and judges your verbal performance: he tells you that you are using to many negative expressions, should avoid conditional clauses and that the WPAs are missing (words of personal appreciation, for instance "Well done..."). The supervising decides whether an agent gets promoted onto a higher wage level or not. If the supervisor does not like you... well, bad luck! Those in the "accounts- and securities-service" get statistics on the amount of calls, call-times, not-ready-times, breaks, etc. With comments that the not-ready-times are too long and that someone has extended the break by 25 seconds for three times!
After the merger the seating arrangement was changed as well. Before there were open rooms, tables without dividing walls and free choice of seats. So the workers could sit with their friends and gossip. Then tables for four were introduced with deviding walls and the agents were asked to sit together in pre-arranged teams. Apparently the aim was to avoid that workers have fun together. The workers keep on taking out the dividing walls... and at night simeone puts them back.
The full timers cannot do the job for more than two or three years. Either you leave then or you become a teamleader. Now none of the full timers is taken as a teamleader anymore. Those come from outside. So far the teamleaders where called by their first name, now they insist on their surname. Apparently they want to replace the old and softer regime or the old Bank 24-days with a new and tougher one.
The way the work is organised, with many calls, direct-to-ear, with few, strictly defined operations, dictated phrases and strict rules the agents are really just the second-best solution. A machine could do that better. You are being used, a number in the statistics. You are being controlled and put under pressure whenever you are allegedly too slow.


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