Empathy: the Heart of the Call Flow

Inside this massive industry known as call centers, I was then an insignificant entry-level agent three years ago, seated in front of a workstation, complete with headset, phone and a personal computer. I was part of this global network where Caucasian customers are busy on their lives on the daytime side of the world, while this nighttime side made an employee like me wide awake just to earn good money. I was taught to sound confidently for every call I take, to read my spiels impeccably, and to deny that I am someone far from my customer's skin color, or that I stand on a piece of this earth far away from their enormous continent. I was taught to toughen my onion skin, while being violently darted with a rich spectrum of insults, from irate shouts to ruthless badmouthing. Learning these things allowed my attitude toward people to mutate, and I began seeing each call a potential sale, and forgot that I am talking to a human being and not to credit cards or wallets with hefty cash. Worse, my experience then unleashed some little monsters within me, causing them to inspire me of getting even with customers who refuse to buy, who curse me or those who waste my time. It did not matter, since at the end of the long wait for the 15th and 30th, a 5-digit salary blinking in an ATM display was a blissful reward.

After 6 months and a sure, stable job, I resigned. And I have begun practicing my conviction that whoever needs this kind of job, I will help them surpass the nightmares and stay sane and humane in a this mechanistic world of call centers.



I designed a diagram which universally adapts all call handling processes many call centers utilize. I called it the Call Flow. It follows a step by step process that happens in each call. Say, every call starts from an introduction, where an agent introduces himself and his company, then warmly greets the caller. This is followed by either asking the customer's personal information or immediate concern . As with personal information, the agent must verify how the customer's name is pronounced and spelled. While asking concern entails the mastery of probing: asking series of open-ended questions, (starting with who, what, when, where, why and how) and close-ended (answerable by yes or no). Probing helps the agent to take the big picture of the caller's need. At times, agent needs to put the customer on hold or maybe to transfer her to another department. The agent must provide reasonable explanation for this particular action. After the whole process, the agent must end the call properly, with the same warmth all throughout the call.

Ask a call center agent about these steps, and they will agree that these are unmistakably part of their every night routine. A call must be professionally handled, with graceful demeanor and with unwavering niceness, otherwise any ill-mannered behavior is a a surest way to lose the job . But then, even if every agent is taught of being nice to their callers and avoid being rude so one can make a sale or have good reputation, there is still a missing piece. It's called empathy and its a way far from just fitting someone else shoes.

Literally, the word empathy means passion, but it has evolved since then. The word is more synonymous to compassion, or feeling the pain of another. Now, this is more than fitting the shoes; it's about sharing the same painful sore ankles and toes while wearing those shoes. It's about the same feeling you and the other both experienced, regardless of what the shoes are made of. And its about the freedom when both of you remove those shoes and choose to be barefoot instead.

In two years I have had students who eyed call center jobs. Aside from giving them the tricks of the trade, I strongly reiterated this very lesson once they enter the world of calls: always empathize. Put empathy as the heart of every call. See that every caller empowers you more to be patient, to be caring, to be compassionate. A caller might be the rudest person on Earth, but never be blinded by what the person does or says. A situation like this calls for an agent to intend Loving-kindness for someone whose world has quarantined by the belief that no one is concerned. Let a gentle voice, a firm tone, a friendly word and a Loving thought enrich each call. It humbly reminds of our own human need, which is for another human to feel our deepest need for Love.

It's very easy to get lost in a call, say, a customer who shouts offensive words, or insults you of different sorts, and find yourself reacting crabbily against. This story is a common story, and has fired many agents since. For some, this story has frozen their spirits and fueled their tempers, and they have perpetuated the culture that "your enemy is on the other line." I would admit that throughout my call center days, I had an ample share of impolite acts, like rising the tone of my voice, pushing the mute button and curse the caller, putting the customers on hold until they hang up or transferring a rude customer to a Spanish-speaking agent . All of these are bad acts that have allowed me to transform my grudges against my former job into deep gratitude of hard lessons learned. Being a call center agent had printed huge numbers on my pay slips, and left more ineradicable impressions of Love in my heart.

This is why I deeply value the role of call centers in our society. In this increasingly complex world where people are wired through different means of communication, there is a growing need to talk, to share, to ask and to connect. I am led to believe that call centers are growing not because of market demands that companies create, but perhaps this abysmal need to express deepest intricacies of one's soul. Understanding this reality, I remembered the call handling technique of a very good friend who majored in Nursing. Before signing a contract, she was asked during her interview after a mock call on how she suavely managed an irate customer (which her interviewer acted). Prior to job, she was virtually clueless of anything about the industry, since she was a nurse. Her shrewd answer referred to her vivid experiences in mental institutions, and an irate call is just like a conversation with a mental patient. She did not know what call center is, nor she knew about selling and customer service. But she learned a great deal of listening, caring and being compassionate to her patients. She's still a call center agent, and for each call she handles, she has found her heart growing with more empathy for callers who might be just needing someone with the heart to listen.

Taking calls every shift sounds like a boring routine at one end and quarrelsome at the other. Let it be, for every call an agent takes, whether it's simple or difficult, is a call for the heart to Love more. We will never stop on just doing the business alone; we will become someone who inspires Love in a job that originally aimed to listen and to care.

Kaleidoscope

As a young kid, I was always fascinated with science projects that involve many kinds of experiments. So when our school declared a competition on best scientific inventions (which of course are simple but useful devices), I decided to join and try my luck. As I remember it, there were perhaps five students who joined and submitted their projects for the exhibit. Most of their designs were made of battery-powered trinkets and scraps with dynamos and gears. Mine was a little weird; it didn't conform to any expected robotics and mechanization. I chose optics instead. Although there was no direct use for my "invention," I still took the risk, still expected that I would win. Unfortunately I didn't. Yet, fortunately, that project has brought me to a larger appreciation of this ever-moving, ever-colorful life. My invention then is called the Kaleidoscope.

I first encountered this word on my encyclopedia, and found there instructions on how to make one. Excited, I went to the nearest glass store in town and bought some little scraps of mirror and asked the glass workers to cut it in a foot's length. I used three mirror sheets, electric taped them together to form a triangular scope. Since my kaleidoscope was crude, I was not able to create a knob at the end of it where colorful patterns can revolve. Instead, I created patterns from art papers, cut them and paste in small cardboard. The kaleidoscope was then displayed, I just needed to put the pattern at the other open end of the scope and revolve it myself. This way, I could now see how patterns move differently. My classmates were amazed on what I did, for it was their first time to see a kaleidoscope. Though I did not bag the prize, recalling this experience reminds me of many interesting facts I learned from this simple project. From the Greek words which mean "to view beautiful forms", the experience of viewing through a kaleidoscope is exactly true to its word origins. Beautiful patterns emerge, reflecting to all sides of mirrors. And what it makes more interesting is that, if patterns are made of small colorful beads or paper bits, one pattern will be formed only once. I read it from the encyclopedia that scientists tried to calculate if how long a specific single pattern will reappear, it would take more than 400 billion years! It was awesome and eerie at the same time, for the pattern I once saw won't anymore reappear in my lifetime.

This kaleidoscope thing has reminded me throughout the years. Whenever I meet new people or go to different places or learn a new knowledge, I always come to my senses that this very moment, no matter how seemingly normal, cannot anymore happen at exactly the same way. At times when I ride a jeepney, I reflect on how these patterns of life emerge, when I look around, each passenger I am riding with will never more sit on the same seat, dress the same clothes, or behave eccentrically the way they did right at that moment. Whenever I recall my experiences in the past, may it be academic life or adventure of sorts, I had always the reflection that the presence, the smiles, the laughters, the thoughts will never be exactly the same again. As I realize this in those moments, I have felt mixed emotions. I sometimes attach myself to these experiences that left good memories, and long for the friends I have made. In the long run, I end up grateful and frustrated at the same time. A friend once said "people come and people go" which is a very certain possibility. This taught me to wholeheartedly value people more, to pay attention to them and the situations where we meet and the moments that I cannot possibly freeze in time.

I once again saw a giant kaleidoscope at the Museong Pambata in Manila. It relived my childhood fantasy, of creating again of what I claim as my brainchild. It has a big revolving drum and large mirrors inside, and the patterns can be seen and revolved using a crank on one side. As I played around, I found myself in this very kaleidoscopic moment. I have made some wonderful friends at the poetry workshop I attended that time, and some delightful chances to explore my world, like the ones touring in a museum for kids. The experience of the moment became more palpable as the wisdom of kaleidoscope reminded me to savor this instant, which sooner would be part of ephemeral memories.


This past few weeks I had a series of meeting with my new friends, and we had conversations cum Communes. I have savored my simple walking meditations along the IRRI road in Los Baños seeing the majestic Makiling. I have watched fireflies again hovering over a small tree, a sight which I haven't seen for years. I have met people on the road as we greet each other, which I rarely experience. And I have never ever seen beauty this way before. It is very true that through this inner kaleidoscope, I can see beautiful patterns rearranging in this poignant movement of life. They may not appear again, but they will be forever part of what makes new colorful patterns come into sight. What makes life exciting is that every pattern is different; people, places and circumstances might be the same, but the shuffling of their presence and interconnections are totally different, and changing constantly every second, every minute. This uncertainty of patterns is what I always anticipate, as each small detail reflects the infinite beauty, where Love never fails to unfold.

Of all the songs I 've heard from the late master rapper Francis Magalona, only Kaleidoscope World resonates my spiritual insights. Differences and diversities, changes and vicissitudes, are all but part of this wonderful life. His song does not question why things appear differently; rather he used the kaleidoscope as a metaphor of acceptance, where each of us can view our lives and its myriad of possibilities without judgment. Because, as the song goes, every color and hue are us. Each being and becoming is my own being and becoming. And the moment I see the world as beautiful patterns, through my inner kaleidoscope called Love, beauty seems incalculably endless.

Insights from Water

I used to anticipate the rain every first week of May. After the long wait, I would sit down and meditate in the rain, feel the first droplets waiting to reach the dry summer ground. As the rain pours down, I begin to feel each cold droplet on my skin until I control the shiver over my body.It was always a very Zen feeling, as I tried to figure out how my awareness is struggling to focus among the raindrops, the coldness, and the thoughts that linger in my mind. However, it is quite strange to experience early storms in the middle of tropical summer, just a week before May comes. It seems that the weather is changing. Or is it the mind of the world changing? Change has been taking place. At one side, it brings discomfort; at the other, it brings insights.

I always tell myself that the rain and I are one. The series of rainy days has brought me again this very thought. Inevitably, the rain that I accept as I am is another word for water. It has been ironic that even I fear water as it shows vastness in its body, I deeply revere it when it comes back from the sky. Weather changes somehow awaken my consciousness on the reality of impermanence. Everything is changing. Like water, unpredictable. It brings fearful thoughts of being overwhelmed (like the Typhoon Milenyo's wrath), then dynamically moves into something that quenches my inner thirst.


As I watched a video clip on Wayne Dyer's Change Your Thought, Change Your Life, I couldn't help but notice how the stoic rock stands where whitewater cascades. This is the sight of the symbolic Yin and Yang, the symbol of balance and movement. So, in understanding that rock is Love, seeing water flowing between it has given me a very astounding insight.

After the rock, let's talk about the water.

A friend once said that it is so hard to Love all beings without exception. When she sends intention of Love to people, she stops dead on her tracks. She begins to get angry towards someone. This anger brings so much mental pain and suffering. So she excludes these difficult persons from her intentions. Although it is difficult, her struggles has turned my understanding from Love to equanimity. This breakthrough is clearly seeing that Love is formless, fluid, and flowing. And only water can perfectly embody these qualities.

We all know that water is always transforming, always encompassing. It can appear as solid like ice and gas like vapor. It is gentle as a dewdrop, calm as a puddle, vast as an ocean, fierce as a tsunami. Going beyond from form to form, water epitomizes how Love does the same.

As simple as being contained in different vessels, water takes different shapes. It becomes the shape of a glass or a pot or a jar. The vessels are emptiness existing in the depths of our being. It might be hatred, guilt, frustration, sadness, grudges, judgments, fear. Water is then poured, takes the shape of the empty anger and becomes harmony. It takes the shape of guilt and becomes freedom. It takes the shape of frustration and becomes hope. In sadness, it becomes joy; in grudges, it becomes goodwill; acceptance in judgment, Love in fear. The time comes when the pouring of water is so powerful, like a raging cascade, that the empty vessel will be then shattered. The force of the free flowing Love breaks all emptiness. Because an empty vessel can never contain this tremendous outpouring of Love.

Sometimes there are situations where people are so cold, so indifferent that we assume they lack Love, but think otherwise. For Love never leaves them, even how frigid their hearts might be. Love slows then, hardens and becomes ice, waiting for the right moment to thaw when right people are ready to send that warmth. There might also be a place when anger rules, so hot and so irritating that we think Love steams away. Do not worry, for Love sometimes evaporate, seemingly invisible but still just around in the space, waiting to cool down until it returns as nourishing droplets.


The river treading the path to the ocean is a nice metaphor from a friend. He views Love this way, flowing into the vastness. To swim against the tide is futile and to go with the flow is freedom. I might fear what kind of power Love can do, yet I trust this true nature of Love. This ocean is water that transforms from one shape, from one force, from one movement to the other. This is why Lao Tzu reminded us to become water. For water in its perfection clearly embodies what Love is and what it can do if we become Love.


There is a hidden message in water, and Japanese doctor Masaru Emoto has discovered it. Water responds when either thoughts of Love or fear is projected into it. With fear, as well as an array of negative thoughts, a water droplet forms ugly solid structure when frozen. With Love, together with all its positive vibrations, a water droplet forms beautiful water crystals. This discovery points out a substantial proof that the formless water can create beautiful forms, given that our deep potency of Love affects it. Emoto calls for our understanding of water. This world is made of 70% water. Our bodies contain almost the same amount. If we can just share Loving thoughts to others, then each of us having the living water within can be transformed into wonderful possibilities.

May the flowing, formless water reminds us the nourishing Love within.

Thin Line

There is always a very thin line between truths. They might be both true and the same. But we must need to look closer.

There is a thin line between affirming and pretending. When I say "I am pure," this is true. This is what Love wants us to see. We are pure, and its truer than we think we are not. We are more deserving of Love, because this Love is within us. But we fear that because of our defilement, of being sinful, of those mistakes we committed in the past, saying this phrase means we are pretending. This thought of pretending is not true. The time of Love is now. All mistakes we did cannot anymore be us. We are pure, and this is the truth we must see.

There is a thin line between innocence and ignorance. The child within us is innocent, always childlike, curious and seeking for answers. We never stop to wonder. We continue to discover the world that is us. This child within us has never learned to judge and hate, but only to trust and Love. Fear tells us otherwise. That we are childish, immature brats, that we cannot grow and become. That we do not know and not ready to know. Yet we are ignorant because we fear. We are innocent because we Love.

There is a thin line between insight and interpretation. Insight is an experience, coming forth from our inner seeing, inner being. When we learn knowledge, our hearts and minds transform them to understanding. Thus, our insights are born. We can now speak about what we have read or what we have heard, for they echo our wisdom within. Interpretation, on the other hand, is any knowledge we have read or heard, filtered by our own or others' intellect. We accept and preach them as truths but we are incapable of experiencing them. Interpretation is our fear seeking truth. Insight is our Love that has found the truth.

There is a thin line between caring and overprotecting. Caring is Love shown to others. It is my warm embrace, my tender touch, my gentle shoulders, my open arms. I am there with someone, my presence which is the best I can give. But, say, when a mother shouts at her child not to play so he wont get hurt, this might look like caring, but it is not. This is overprotecting. Whenever we repress our loved one's freedom, to stop them because we thought they are in danger, we fear. We stop to Love when we are overprotective. I overprotect someone because I fear. I only care someone because I Love.

There is a thin line between trust and expectation. Trusting is the attitude of the heart. I trust a person because he or she is Love. Whatever a person has or has done, it does not matter. Love cannot be measured by the worth of a person's actions or possessions. Expecting a person to do or have something is limiting. We fear the same for ourselves, for we don't want to be measured by the yardstick we use to measure others. Love is immeasurable. Because each of us is Love, we are the same. Let us stop expecting people to behave what we want. Let us begin Loving people as infinite as they are.

There is a thin line between faith and blind faith. Faith is our conviction to the unseen truth. We deeply trust what Love brings us. This is faith. Even without anyone explaining or interpreting, we are faithful and we see the truth long before we see it. Blind faith is different. It is our default way to ignore the truth, to think that somebody else is capable of knowing it and our only role is to follow it. We accept and defend the truth without understanding it, let alone experience it. This is blindness, not faith. We fear we cannot understand and experience, which causes us not to see. But Love tells us otherwise. We are blessed, because through this blindness we are now given the chance to see; to see the truth of Love.

There is a thin line between detachment and indifference. Detachment is a way to see things with a discerning mind and caring heart. It is seeing life as it is, seeing people as they are, without expecting, without judging. Detaching is not to escape, but to get involve. Yet fear sees this as indifference. Fear deludes us that detaching is escaping, but it is not. Indifference is escaping, because being indifferent is fearing that we cannot do something. We escape and deny things as they are and pretend that they are not existing. Indifference is fear of facing the truth. Detachment is Love, filled with courage to face the truth.

There is a thin line between co-creating and compromising. Co-creating is acknowledging that whoever I meet, they are fully capable of becoming and creating. When we are together, we remain two, yet become one. We are beyond than what we are, yet the truth that I am stays the same. We are both in synergy, our energies become united and empower us both. But compromising is submitting to the will of somebody, for fear of being rejected. We compromise because we want to please someone, and at the end depriving ourselves of the worth that we are. We always settle for less for the belief that we can get more. Yet we end up lesser than what we have. Fear pushes us to compromise. Only Love allows us to co-create.

There is always a thin line. But this thin line becomes thinner, and eventually disappears. Through Love we see the truth. So the thin line will never more exist.

My Religion is Loving-kindness

It's funny to look back at times when people asked me of one of the toughest, million-dollar questions I have ever had in my life: "What is your religion?" It really seemed a big deal, since the time when I started exploring other religions, it was hard to label myself of a religion where I really belong. The question is a very sensitive matter, almost a taboo. Talking to people who have their convictions on their own religious denominations could start from a hearty talk to rough disagreements. Many religions have different ways of experiencing and expressing their respect to God, through a myriad of rituals and doctrines. Both are the most common arenas where zealous followers will contend their beliefs and urge new converts. I couldn't help but to stay silent and listen to their powerful convictions, let alone the pretense that I understand.

I once dreamed to become a religious anthropologist just to learn more about why religions are different and in what way they are the same. But through the help of a university professor who lectured on eastern religions, I was able to see the two most important ways in learning a religion, without needing to spend tuition fees and tormenting studies. First, religions have an external layer, where all of the details and accessories can be found. In the external layer, history is different, language is different, rites are different, beliefs are different. This is where many Christian denominations clash, as well as the sects within other major religions. This is the common battlefield where historical wars "in the name of God" took place. This is where a follower believes that his way is the "only way" and other ways are led astray. This is where most organized religions will strongly fight over the "truth" and build walls to protect their followers from the heathens and nonbelievers.

The external layer is the main reason why the term ecumenism and interfaith/interreligious dialogue are coined. "Peace talks" among religions are made. Religious authorities meet halfway, trying to harmonize all labels and bridging all the gaps to mitigate misunderstandings. They initiate efforts to establish consonance of perspectives about life, humanity, spirituality, and God. These are all important undertakings in the time when peoples of the world can connect and communicate, and exist together in many dimensions of life.

Nonetheless, it is time to seek for the second way, the internal layer. The internal layer is not a dialogue of premises nor contentions of concepts. It is the understanding that all humans, whatever religious practice, have the same experiences and aspirations. The internal layer develops the perspective of universality, beyond the language of doctrines and symbols of rituals. It seeks not to meet halfway, but to be whole in many ways. We all experience suffering, misery, pain and fear. We all aspire for peace, abundance, joy, harmony, and Love. Through understanding the internal layer, we can share with another human being our humanness, without the need to identify ourselves with any religion. We are now seeking the root. Despite our differences, we are all One. We are more than the labels of our religious tradition, because the Love within us cannot be labeled by any means.

It is not that I can be a Catholic, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Taoist, a Jew, a Jain, a Shinto all at the same time. I can only be human, seeking for the true meaning of life. This is the same for the whole humanity. What I can do is to Love, because I am Love. The awareness of Love transcends all languages of differences. We are not anymore seeking to convert people nor to be converted from one religion to the other. The internal layer sees this unnecessary. Meditation teacher S.N. Goenka addressed these words at the United Nations Peace Summit: "We should try to convert people fom misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation, from cruelty to compassion." The best we can do is not to push in and pull out people from any beliefs. Rather, we begin converting people from the experience of fear to the experience of Love.


In his message after the 9/11 attacks, the Dalai Lama said a very powerful wisdom on religion. "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." His words struck me a new insight. Now, the question that puzzled me is no longer tough to answer. Inspired by the Dalai Lama, I always reply, "My religion is Loving-kindness." Our ability to understand and share the wisdom of Love is our true religion. This is the only truth that can set us all free.