Marycel Vargas – Content Editor, Back-Office Support, Customer Service Representative

If I’m going to describe to you now the state of my career… it’s “too early to retire but already a workplace antique in a crossroads”. That’s because I was too excited to work at an early age and achieve my life goals right away. I finished school before I turned 20 with a bachelor’s degree in arts, Major in Philosophy from University of Santo Tomas. My fondness for reading books, writing and research all stemmed in my major as it is a good training ground for finding answers to any questions there is or so say, “shedding light in any dark areas” that needed enlightenment.

I landed a job in a multinational manufacturing company as a Staff Assistant, wherein I learned so much as a newbie, my experience there became the solid food of my career. For a year, I learned how to do just anything that was asked of me from Management, Admin, Sales and Marketing, Purchasing, Research and Development, and Accounting. Everyone knows me because I got their backs! Coordination is the key. I got to learn their routines and how their departments operate.

I have tried working in other industries like Hotel/Tourism and Education, which I enjoyed a lot. What I love about both is the infectious young vibe that makes me always feel on the go, but teaching, as others often say, is the more fulfilling job. During that time, I became a mom to a beautiful daughter. My life was not a rose-colored fairy tale. I raised my child on my own as a single mom, it did not make me settle in teaching, so I searched again for a better paying job. That’s when I transitioned to BPO work where I stick to the longest.

Honestly, I was hired in the BPO during its sunrise era. I worked as a Customer Service Representative at Convergys Philippines for almost 6 years, eventually became a Sales & Service Rep when I became tenured who handled claims and complaints. Our team was the only email support in the entire country in 2004, where most projects in most BPOs are voice calls. And I swear to God that since then, all the projects I’ve handled were non-voice and back-office support. I’m proud to say that I’m lucky with the projects I worked on because they are known brands/companies and I’m particular about the learnings that I got from them. Since most of my projects are web-based, I became at par with the digital landscape, and it has equipped me with knowledge of what’s next.

My last BPO was Cognizant Philippines, where I became a content moderator of a social media platform for 8 years. I think the highlight of my career in social media is being able to discern the thin line between free speech and abuse and being able to give good judgment on the content we see online. Since the pandemic up to this year, our project has adapted a Work-From-Home set-up. For 4 years, I have been doing remote work. My social media stint was cut when things at work started to automate. Programs were run by machines, machines we taught at first and when they finally learned the rules, they snatched our jobs. Never would I imagine that this event will take place in my career but yes I witnessed it, it is here and it’s real! Ready or not, we have to accept that these changes are happening now and we need to learn it in order to take advantage of it. And that’s the sunset story of my BPO career.

Right now, I’m standing on the crossroads of abandoning BPO totally and doing freelancing in the midst of this AI thingy. I think the path leads to freelancing and I’m confident that I’m fully ripe to do the great work here. It’s not yet time to surrender because my beautiful daughter still has a year to go to finish her course in Computer Engineering. If I stop now, I would be lost in the sea of AI takeover, and I wouldn’t know their limits to be able to regulate them. We humans should take the power back.

Before I end this story of mine, I want to remind you to always wake up inspired: to be better, to learn something new, to be kind, to love. Because when you’re inspired, you don’t need motivation.

It’s me, Marycel Vargas or Shel, who is always inspired, and I’m your future colleague.

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