For call centre supervisor Vic Vinegar, morning meetings were always an awkward mix of driving call volumes and feeling the ire of disgruntled employees. But since moving to work-from-home arrangements, Vinegar and colleagues have found a new common interest in popular Netflix series Tiger King. 

Vinegar’s sudden interest in something other than the weather has renewed his enthusiasm to work at the call centre, despite a notable downturn in call volumes within his team during the coronavirus pandemic. 

“We’ve given everyone mobile phones so that they can make their calls from home but the volumes are down because people are just a bit bummed out from having to stay at home all day,” said Vinegar. 

“We’re all still meeting in the morning to allocate call lists but without being able to look over their shoulders, I guess they’re just not as motivated as when we’re all together in the office.

“But morale is still good. We have a good chat about tigers every morning which lightens the mood a bit.” 

Mobile phone logs show Vinegar’s team to have made 95% less outbound calls than when they are working in the office.