Ventura Call Centre, Manvers, Rotherham
Created | Updated Sep 4, 2007
Ventura is a HUGE call centre located between Rotherham and Barnsley at a purpose-built industrial site called, suprisingly, Ventura Park. It consists of two massive hanger-sized buildings incorporating (and this is only a rough guestimate) space for 3000 customer service agents who are herded like cattle in to work each morning.
Ventura make no calls for themselves, however they 'win' contracts on behalf of other national and multi-national companies to be part of their company. Notable companies that utilise their services are O2, British Gas, Orange and Sainsbury's. One section of the call centre is also opened up for charity events such as Children in Need.
Employees of Ventura are invariably brain-dead older people, mothers coming back 'for a few hours work' or perpetually stoned young people who are unable to find anything else constructive to do with their lives. Customer service agents are kept constantly in check by predominantly anally-retentive 'Team Leaders' whose sole purpose in life is to make a crap job even crapper ("Put that phone away!", "You're two minutes late back from your break"). Team Leaders are kept in check by even more anally-retentive Team Managers who pretend to be concerned about people's concerns but generally just strut around like they own the place. The saving grace of employment is that the wages are substantially higher than minimum wage. However, the drawback of this is that once you're in, you get used to it and you can't afford to leave for another, more interesting job because you can't take the drop in wages.
All in all, if you happen to live anywhere near by and you get offered a job at Ventura, take it - but only with a due sense of caution and dread. If nothing else, you get the chance to read h2g2 whilst at work as long as you don't get spotted by an anally-retentive etc....
Ventura make no calls for themselves, however they 'win' contracts on behalf of other national and multi-national companies to be part of their company. Notable companies that utilise their services are O2, British Gas, Orange and Sainsbury's. One section of the call centre is also opened up for charity events such as Children in Need.
Employees of Ventura are invariably brain-dead older people, mothers coming back 'for a few hours work' or perpetually stoned young people who are unable to find anything else constructive to do with their lives. Customer service agents are kept constantly in check by predominantly anally-retentive 'Team Leaders' whose sole purpose in life is to make a crap job even crapper ("Put that phone away!", "You're two minutes late back from your break"). Team Leaders are kept in check by even more anally-retentive Team Managers who pretend to be concerned about people's concerns but generally just strut around like they own the place. The saving grace of employment is that the wages are substantially higher than minimum wage. However, the drawback of this is that once you're in, you get used to it and you can't afford to leave for another, more interesting job because you can't take the drop in wages.
All in all, if you happen to live anywhere near by and you get offered a job at Ventura, take it - but only with a due sense of caution and dread. If nothing else, you get the chance to read h2g2 whilst at work as long as you don't get spotted by an anally-retentive etc....
