It's never a job I would hold. But my company has a lot of hourly employees that do work similar to a call center in many ways, and because of what I've seen here, I understand the company's policies to a degree. Maybe I can help you see where they are coming from.
Your first insight is the way people behaved in training - unfortunately, that shows the general maturity level of the employees. And that means the managers have to manage to that level. Strict policies are required because employees just abuse things otherwise. Emails have to be sent out about taking unscheduled restroom breaks because the policy has to be clearly communicated to all employees before they can write up a particular employee that is abusing it. Managers have learned that if they show any flexibility, employees will often take advantage. These types of employees are also often very quick to file grievances with state labor boards, etc. if they perceive you do something "unfair" or show better employees more leeway, so the managers have to be absolutely sure to treat everyone the same (crappy) way. A few bad apples spoils the batch unfortunately.
As far as the variables hours go - that's just part of the business too. Our business runs hot and cold - some days we are slammed, some days there is nothing to do. We cannot pay people to sit around doing nothing so on the light days, people's hours are cut. And when we are slammed unexpectedly, then mandatory overtime is often required - in our case, we usually ask for volunteers first, but employees need specialized training for certain work, so if not enough volunteers with that training are available, others have to work when they'd rather not. Managers try to predict volume and schedule staff accordingly, but there just is no crystal ball and their predictions can be off. But this is explained to people when they take the job - they usually have no problem with it during the interview stage, but once it starts happening in real life, suddenly it's unfair.
Unless you love the work, I'd look for something else. From all your responses, you seem to have already decided this environment is evil - if that's the case, then you probably need to move on. Honestly, management is well aware of what is going on so there is nothing you need to bring their attention to to have it corrected. You probably are a more mature employee, unfortunately most others are not. You are just a square peg in a round hole - the position is not a good fit for you.
