Visit to an Orange Call Centre: Call centers are often described as the industrial ghettos of modern working life and the jobs of call-handlers are considered to be ‘low-quality’ and heavily routinised forms of work.  People often work in 12-hour shifts answering about 200 calls a day. Often monitoring is tightly regimented, and employees have to meet high efficiency targets.

Over the years, the call centre industry has attracted much negative comment in the media. Newspaper, radio and television features have all referred to call centers as ‘electronic sweatshops’, with the term ‘battery hens’ used to illustrate the suggested intensive and stressful nature of being a call handler.