» Call Centres

Pearoast
At least I think it is.

My old flatmate enjoyed winding up call centre staff so much he decided to let them keep on calling. Now, I did work in a call centre, but that was inbound customer service, and as a result I have no sympathy whatsoever for the sales or outbound staff as I was on the receiving end of complaints when they had lied their arses off to get a sale.

A selection of the Andy's best follows:

1. The surreal tangent

Caller: Hello sir, can I ask you about your mobile phone?
Andy: You may.
Caller: Did you know you can trade in your old phone etc. etc.?
Andy: Why no, I did not.
caller: would you be interested in doing so?
Andy: No, I do not own a phone.
Caller: You do not own a mobile phone sir?
Andy: Nope, no phones at all.
Caller: Sir, do not be funny sir, you must be speaking to me on a phone of some sort.
Andy: No I'm not.
Caller: Sir, please do not make funny with me sir.
Andy: I'm not honestly. It's just that the fridge started ringing and your voice came out of it.
Caller: The fridge sir?
Andy: Refridgerator, yes. Your voice is coming out of it from just behind the mince.
Caller: ...
Andy: Do you get this often?
*click*

2. The 'Actually making that person's day' call
Andy came through to the living room talking on the phone, muted the telly and put the woman on speakerphone.
Woman: ...and apparently one half of your house isn't on a conservation area so that half would be suitable for double glazing...
Andy: Oh, would you remove the bricks?
Woman: I'm sorry?
Andy: They got bricked up after the council levied a tax on windows. We couldn't afford more than 3.
Woman: I didn't know they still did that...
Andy: Well, you know, it's just part of the learning curve.
Woman: Yes.
Andy: I never wanted to be a homeowner...
Woman: No?
Andy: No...I wanted to be a lumberjack, Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia. The giant larch, the redwood, the mighty scots pine. With my best girl by my side, we'd sing...sing... sing...

And we did. The whole song.

She seemed to enjoy it.

3. Convince them you're a psycho

Caller: And the best thing is that you can take 10 friends' numbers and get a reduced tariff on calls and texts to them.
Andy: Oh dear.
Caller: Do you have that on your current phone?
Andy: I don't think so. I don't know if I need that feature.
Caller: I assure you sir it's very useful, most people only call the same few numbers with any frequency.
Andy: But...I don't know if I have ten friends.
Caller: Well, you don't have to use all of them.
Andy: There's mother...
Caller: Right, family as well.
Andy: Um...
Caller: Does your dad have a phone?
Andy: Who? There's Aunty Sarah - I used to fancy her when I was six - but she's in a retirement home now and doesn't like noise.
(Tue 8th Sep 2009, 11:11, More)

» Call Centres

Tragedy
During another frankly fantastic 13 hour shift working for a wonderful company who had my best interests at heart I got a phone call from a slightly dotty old Jamaican lady who had called because 'The little light was on but the telly isn't going on.'

After about ten minutes of her nattering away about the programmes she was missing ('Sorry, I'm working during the day so don't really have a chance to watch daytime telly.' 'Oh but you must, it's so much better than the alternative.'), it turned out she wasn't talking about her digibox, but the actual telly. It was stuck on standby, her telly had no buttons apart from the power one, and she'd lost the remote. Her son normally helped her with stuff like this but 'he's at uni now' and she was hoping we could send an engineer round to fix her telly.

I told her she needed to find the remote, because an engineer would cost her about thirty pounds, and it wasn't really a problem that needed an engineer out.

She said she'd like an engineer out because she'd like someone round to talk to.

I talked to her for about half an hour, and she agreed to get her neighbour round in the evening to help look for the remote so she could watch telly. In the meantime she went off to find a radio.

She was really nice, I hope she found more people to talk to. And found her remote.
(Sat 5th Sep 2009, 19:06, More)

» Secret Santa

Captain Bastard
This was his nickname. We would feel guilty about doing the things we did to him for any other person but he was such an utter bastard that we didn't even feel the slightest twinge.
To set the scene: Captain had £8,000 in the bank, but still bought girls he fancied Tesco Value Chocolate (he took the wrapper off) and wouldn't buy a round. He wanked furiously and didn't tidy up properly, much to his roomates annoyance. He had a steady girlfriend back home, but still pulled as many people as possible back in Freshers' week, then had the nerve to burst into tears when she broke up with him. So what did he do to cheer himself up? Got his mum to buy him a holiday to America, whereupon he reaquainted himself with an ex. Then when he got back here he got himself another two girlfriends and didn't tell them he was cheating on them with another two girls. All this time he still letched on people, especially people you were trying to talk to.
The guy was an arsefountain.
So, when I got him in Secret Santa I felt obliged to indicate everyone's feelings towards him. I got his present and did the old cunt's trick of wrapping it in as many layers as possible. Such was the density and size of the package that it looked and felt like a dvd case. In fact it was 26 different layers of paper stuck down with double sided sticky tape.
There is a video on my friend's computer of him unwrapping the present and the transition on Captain's face from excited to frustrated to confused to panic to annoyance to the penny dropping was priceless. I'll try to post it if I can get the video from someone.
I hope he enjoyed his Mojo Pills, I spent a full £2 getting them from a pub toilet. Added to that was the fact that when I gave him them I was dressed as Santa and swigging from a bottle of rum, grinning like a loon.
(Fri 15th Dec 2006, 11:07, More)

» My Greatest Regrets

T'other day
I overheard someone actually saying 'Lol'.

I regret not removing them from the genepool.
(Tue 10th Oct 2006, 12:20, More)

» Heckles

At a pub gig
The support band was a tuneless punk group who didn't know how to play their instruments. After a few songs someone shouted:

'Play one the drummer knows.'

They carried on regardless.
(Tue 11th Apr 2006, 19:01, More)