It's been awhile since my last post and thats because I have been a lot more busy in the past couple weeks. I finally found myself a job down here. I applied for a few teaching jobs but no one would hire me because I don't have a work permit. The sportsbook thing didn't really pan out either so I decided to broaden my search. I emailed my resume to a call center company called Datascension that I found in the classifieds of an online Costa Rican newspaper. They called me back less than ten minutes after I sent it and I went in the next day for an interview.
What I'm doing is calling people in the US and asking them to do surveys. Since we call the US they need people who can speak good English for this job. There were a few other Americans in my training group but also a lot of Costa Ricans who speak English.
We went through a week of what they called "nesting" where we were monitored and evaluated by our trainers. We also got points for the number of surveys we completed and you can make more money if you get a certain number of points. The points made it like a competition and that made it more fun for me, especially because I was the top producer of our group just about every day of the training. They had a whiteboard with everyone's name on it and how many surveys we finished. Some of the Costa Ricans had trouble because they had too strong of an accent and lots of people hung up on them.
After the week of 'nesting' some people had to stay there for more training but they took about the top 8 of us to move up to the main floor and start new projects and officially be part of the company. The people at this job are really cool. Its been nice because everyone there speaks English so its a lot easier to meet people.
I'm starting to feel more and more like a local here. I take a bus to San Jose and then walk about 12 blocks through the city and then get another bus to the suburb where I work. Going through that daily routine, you really get a sense that you are part of the culture just like everyone else. Today I had the day off but I was walking in the city and I went into a store just looking around. The lady asked me if I needed any help and I replied in some broken spanish that I was just looking. She asked me in English if I lived here. I told her that I've been here for about a month and a half. Then she said "I asked because you don't look like a typical tourist." Also, a couple weeks ago some guy asked me for directions. And I think I was even able to tell him correctly.
So I plan on working a lot over the next month and then I'll spend the last few weeks traveling around the country. Its already been a great experience and there's still so much more to come!
JB
