Call Centers and Cornavirus

Well we now have community-spread Coronavirus in El Paso. Last week the County Judge issued an order closing all non-essential businesses. Today or tomorrow there will likely be a more strict order or perhaps some enforcement measures for the existing Shelter-in-Place Order.

If there is a new order or more strict measures, I suggest we start with call centers. Because seriously, warranties on Hyundai's are in no way a critical service right now.

El Paso is filled with call centers, mostly located on the Far East and Far West sides of town. Most call centers are repurposed warehouse spaces. Essentially giant boxes with cubical farms in the middle.

They cram a lot of employees into tight spaces and they have shift work. So that means you have a lot of people in close proximity, coming and going in and out of those places all day long. If you've ever worked in a call center, you know there is no such thing as social distancing. Headsets, phones, keyboards...all notorious harbors for germs and viruses. Lots of surfaces for them to live on.

Then that employee gets off work, freeing up a work station to be filled by the next person's shift. The first guy goes home. But on his way home from work, maybe he stops at the gas pump to fill his tank. Touching the handle some other person unknowingly touches just a minute or two later because hey, gas is cheap right now. Its one of those things we do without thinking.

If he went in for a tall boy to knock back before he goes home he likely touched the door to walk in, maybe shuffled around a few beers in that ice bin before he found his brand. Maybe on his way to go pay for his tall boy he grabs a snack before laying it all on that counter and paying 20 bucks on pump 7. He whips out his debit card and fingers the key pad with his PIN to complete the transaction.

Maybe one person also touches the door, another touches the ice he was digging around in. Some young little kid that can barely reach the counter throws his bag of hot Cheetos on the counter to pay.

Everyone touches the keypad.

See where I'm going with this?

Could this happen at any workplace? Sure. Absolutely.

But call centers are the worst, we have a lot of them, and most of your employees at call centers are right about that age that seems to be the most infected in El Paso - twenties to forties.

Have some of them shut down? Yes, there are some that have been pretty responsible and have sent as many folks home to work from home as possible.

But a lot of them are still open.

That example of Hyundai warranties I mentioned at the start of this post - thats real. There's a call center a couple of blocks east of Lee Treviño right now that is open and operating. I know some workers there and they are all really worried about catching something. Someone was sick and sent home, but thats it. Nothing else was done as far as my sources know. And the job of servicing those warranties for Hyuandais keeps going on.

To clarify, I don't think former El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, famous for his Hyundai dealership here in town, has anything to do with the facility or the contract that call center has with Hyandai's corporate office. But it would sure show some good mayoral leadership on his part if he got them to make some changes for the good of their employees and the entire El Paso community, especially now that we know we have community-spread cases.

All the call centers in El Paso should be doing that.

Profit isn't more important than people.