Fatima Papa – Technical Support, Customer Service Representative

My story begins like everyone else’s, at my birth. I was born in the Fishing Capital of the Philippines, and my childhood was quite enjoyable. My mom worked abroad, so my dad took care of me. Being the first child, I was given everything, from toys to gadgets, but I still felt incomplete without my mom around. My dad was often busy, leaving me with a nanny. I couldn’t go outside to play with my friends due to safety concerns, so I turned to gaming. I spent a lot of time playing Harvest Moon on my Playstation, along with games like Tomba 2, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, and Tekken. Harvest Moon was my favourite, as it offered a relaxing yet challenging farming simulation experience. Even now, I still enjoy playing it. Despite being immersed in video games, I still managed to have some fun childhood experiences playing street games like luksong baka, luksong tinik, and patintero.

In high school, I became engrossed in books and movies, particularly horror movies. I had a collection of DVDs, including Romeo+Juliet, Saw, Silence of the Lambs, The Notebook, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. I also enjoyed reading crime and mystery books, with my first book being “Body Works,” a detailed crime mystery that fascinated me. Even as an adult, these hobbies continue to help me relax amidst life’s chaos. While some people outgrow their childhood hobbies, mine remain a cherished part of my life.

As for my work life story, I started working in the BPO industry in 2017 as a customer service representative for Alorica to a Logistic account, handling customer inquiries about tracking their packages and expediting the deliveries. The second company I worked for was TaskUS for a Delivery app campaign where we assisted drivers in delivering the orders to the customers, answering their inquiries about the pay rate, and cancelling orders. This is the time when COVID hit, and all BPO employees were required to work from home. After that, I worked for VXI, which handles telecommunications accounts where we assist people with internet, phone, and TV concerns. When I started at this company, they just added the upsell skills, and I struggled with the calls that required upselling a plan or an item since it is my weakness.

Currently, I am working for Capgemini, but I am processing my resignation. I love working with Capgemini for a Security account since of all the accounts that I’ve handled, this is the easiest one. However, I feel like my skills are not growing, so I want to expand and change careers that will help me grow.

Before working in the BPO industry, I worked as a personal assistant and as a “Talent” in TV series and movies. My personal assistant role only lasted for 4 months since the Engineer that I worked for moved to a different country. At that time, virtual assistant was not yet recognized. As a “Talent” in TV series and movies, we were background actors and sometimes had lines as well. I’ve been featured in Encantadia, Ang Probinsyano, Dream Dad, The Trial, Richman’s Daughter, The Half Sisters, etc. It is fun working as a talent since you’ll be able to meet a lot of actors and actresses and go to different locations, but it is tiring since most of the time the shoot takes 24 hours before we packed up, which is why I decided to work in the BPO industry.

For a copy of Fatima’s resume, please click here.