How to take COVID precautions in a shared call center?

March 15, 2020 10:55 AM

I work at a call center that provides real-time captions to phone calls for the hearing impaired. I was gonna stay home, but I think maybe our service might do more to slow the epidemic around the country than disbanding our call centers in a few places. But it means sharing cubicles and keyboards (not headsets, at least) with a few hundred people. Any precautions I could take that will slow the inevitable sharing of the virus at the call center?

They still have a good supply of antiseptic wipes for wiping down the keyboard, mouse, chair, desk, etc, but I doubt that does much good.

Am I wrong that going to this job is on balance doing more good than harm? Every shift I help old people communicate with loved ones who definitely could not communicate over the phone without our mediation. Many don't seem tech-savvy enough to be texting or emailing instead. We are in a suburb of Boise, ID, so it's possible the virus is not quite as widespread here yet as it is most places.

posted by straight to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Ask them to give everyone their own keyboard & mouse to use. Call centers are cheap, but providing keyboards and mice is far cheaper than sick time. When you arrive, wipe the monitor, and everything else, then do it all over again. I do think you are providing a very important service; if you are over 60 and/or have health issues, you should be much more cautious. I'm mid-60s with asthma in a state with only a few reported cases, and I'm staying home.
posted by theora55 at 11:05 AM on March 15, 2020 [7 favorites]

You are certainly doing a real service to your callers. If you are young and healthy, getting will be pretty mild so the main thing, knowing you are at somewhat higher risk to catch it, is to be more careful to socially isolate so if you do get it, you don't pass it on to many others.

From what i read, the big thing is not only to use the wipes enough to get things damp and wash your hands well before and after but also be very careful to keep your hands away from your face while you are work and keep a reasonable distance from others. Also, be cautious about door handles, where virus can linger for a few hours.
posted by metahawk at 11:06 AM on March 15, 2020

I am not your pandemic consultant, but I do know that keyboards are super gross and basically impossible to clean, let alone sanitize.

Bring your own kbd and mouse and don't share it.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:13 PM on March 15, 2020 [3 favorites]

My work is mandating that all staff sit at least 2 metres apart, so stagger the cubicales you use. Perhaps I am naive, I would have thought a call centre job would be relatively easy to transfer to a WFH situation with a capital investment by the company.
posted by saucysault at 7:57 PM on March 15, 2020

Response by poster: This system just barely works with beefy computers and very fast internet. I doubt many employees could make it work from home. The cubicles have some separation so the computer can hear (you listen and talk to a computer that has learned to transcribe your voice, like a simultaneous translator) but usually all 300+ are occupied. I'm hoping management is thinking about some mitigation but I don't know. I will try bringing my own keyboard.
posted by straight at 1:09 AM on March 16, 2020