I worked for Language Line on and off since 2005 in their call center in Dominican Republic. I remember having to study hard to pass the Interpreter Skill Assessment test. That was then. Now just about anyone who can say "Hello, my name is" can be an interpreter. In 2006 I was trained to be a Customer Service Interpreter Plus, meaning that in addition to regular calls I would be handling calls from nurses, doctors and taking recorded statements for insurance companies with lawyers on the line. A year later, LLS decided that paying an extra $0.20 cents for a CSI+ was too expensive and eradicated that title and made all regular CSI (even with NO extra training) take those calls for the same miserable pay: $3.40 USD per hour. They charge their customers $3.95/min for the service, so I earned less in ONE hour than the profit I brought in for the company in ONE minute. I also worked as a recruiter that same year and and their philosophy was pretty much quantity before quality. The call center has such a high volume of calls that many calls are bumped off the line by a new incoming call. You ended a call and there was no breather, the next one came in a second after your last call (which had lasted 40 mins) ended. Starting in 2007, All Call Interpreters were forced to take Court-Certified calls (thus lie under oath and say they were certified) when they were not. Those interpreters who felt this was dishonest and abusive (since no pay raise came along with the harder, increased number of calls) were told to suck it up or walk. We had very little support from our supervisors (called "Incharges"). In fact, the general feeling was that Incharges were on a witch hunt, trying to get everyone fired for something as small as taking off your shoes in your cubicle. The incharges grew increasingly jealous of the All Calls because an AC Interpreter earns more than the incharges do (AC interpreter are paid $4.10 USD per hour) and would not allow an interpreter to sign himself on for available overtime because "he'd be earning too much money" (their words exactly). The new All Calls are not even given proper training to take medical calls, They are basically given the material to study on their own and tell them to start taking AC calls BEFORE passing the test. Many AC candidates interpret these calls on a daily basis for months before being told they are not qualified to take them and need to do more studying! There are patients listening to some unqualified interpreter's rendition of a conversation that could mean life or death!!!!!! In 2008 LLS bought out Omni Interpreters and brought along its GM as the center's new GM. This person fired anyone he didn't like, laid off more people in six months than the total in all previous years. This person had a Music degree and was managing an entire call center of interpreters when he himself knew NOTHING of it. He was later on fired due to incompetence but the damage was done. Language Line is a company that exploits its production team, has no regard for its employees and views us only as an employee number. They are greedy and ask for too much when giving back so little.
