» Sleepwalking

Sleep*talking* (well, it's a sedentary job)
Last year I was working in the 21st century equivalent of a 'dark satanic mill'- a call centre.

Being required to answer each call with the standardised greeting for 10.5 hours a day was evidently beginning to erode my freedom of thought - one morning my boyfriend reported that I'd 'taken a call' during the night - "Good morning, you're through to [insert name of evil mobile phone company here], can I take your full name please?..." and then managed to deal with an imaginary customer and their imaginary query.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he informed me of the incident...
(Thu 23rd Aug 2007, 0:37, More)

» Customers from Hell

Nice man, actually. But it could have gone on forever in a pointless loop...
A friendly Mancunian man had called in to ask why he was unable to get a mobile phone signal. I asked him how long the problem had been persisting, and he explained he was staying away from home with work, and he lost the signal whenever he was in a particular area. I thought I’d better look at the coverage map, and check on the transmitters in the area to see if they were working properly.

“Where are you staying at the moment?” I asked.

“Err…” he replied.

I gave him a minute to remember the place name.

“So…” he said awkwardly, after a pause. “Are there any problems in the area?”

“Where, sorry?” I asked, confused.

“Err…”

I was perplexed, and thought he must have a few issues with his memory.

“…Sorry, whereabouts is that?”

“Err! In Scotland!”

“Oh!” I said, suddenly realising. “Ayr! Oh, I am sorry. I thought you were saying ‘err..’, you see – as you were remembering the place name!”

“Oh, oh yeah, actually, that happened the other day, when I was asking for directions from a man – when I was driving up here…”

If it had happened before, you'd think he would have twigged, maybe...
(Wed 10th Sep 2008, 16:53, More)

» Customers from Hell

Cosy by name, c*nty by nature
I was coming to the end of a call centre shift (Vodafone customer service again). It was about 8pm and most of the supervisors had left by that point, and most of the other departments had closed, so it was always a bit more challenging dealing with peoples’ queries at that time of day.

A call came through from a fairly young sounding man from the London area, who was named as a user on an account in his mum’s name (probably had a poor credit rating and couldn’t get his own). His name was Cosi, and he wanted to lift the automatic “content bar” on his account. The motivation for doing this is usually so that you can look at porn websites on your WAP internet. I know you have to be 18 to get a mobile phone on account but the policy was to apply a content bar until the customer chooses to remove it, and they need to verify their identity and over-18 status by either going into a Vodafone shop with ID or paying a nominal fee on their credit card (not debit card) over the phone, which they’ll then get credited back to their account. A bit of a hassle, and seemingly pointless, but that’s the rules.

Anyway, as the account was in the mother’s name, I realised that this was likely to cause problems with the system. I asked if I could speak to his mother and get a payment from her credit card, and he said that wouldn’t be possible. He was coming across as an unpleasant fellow, but being ever-helpful, I asked if I could put him on hold and go and check with my supervisor what I should do.

I spent a couple of minutes talking to the supervisor and she told me it probably wasn’t possible to remove the bar without speaking to his mother, but that she’d go and check with another department if I could go back to talk to the customer and suggest other alternatives.

“Hello again,” I said, taking him off hold. “I did just go and speak to my supervisor, and she’s gone to check whether we’ll be able to take the content bar off for you…”

He interrupted me. “Yeah , you’ve just put me on hold for five minutes and gone to chat with your friends, that’s what you’ve been doing.”

“No, I am really trying to help here. An alternative way of getting the bar lifted is to visit a Vodafone store with some proof of age and identity. Would that be possible?”

“I’m too busy to go into a store! Look I just want to get this bar lifted, you jobsworth, it’s not difficult…”

“Sorry, the problem has been caused by the account being in your mother’s name. You could ask her to call at another time with her credit card if it’s not convenient for you to go into the shop…”

“Look, I just want to get this sorted now, I don’t have time for this....” and on he went, using various insulting terms and accusing me of being lazy/not helping etc; obviously he knew his way round talking to CSRs rudely because he didn’t use any swear words, meaning that I couldn’t threaten terminating the call. He didn’t raise his voice either; he was just generally unpleasant. I told him I needed to go back to my supervisor to see if she’d managed to find out what I could do, and he went off on another rant about how I was just skiving off, chatting to my friends, etc. I had had enough by this point, he really didn’t deserve my energy and effort, and my finger jabbed down on the ‘end call’ button before I could stop it.

I decided to check back on the account a few minutes later, to see if he’d called back. I saw the notes from the next CSR saying that he had mentioned various threats about what he’d have done if he’d been talking to me in person, I should watch my back etc. Then it said they’d given him £5 credit on his account for ‘any inconvenience’.

Always lovely to be undermined. I should have put a bar on his phone. All that hassle because he wanted to look at porn on a tiny screen, which surely can’t be that exciting.

Better apologise for length on this one. But it was therapeutic to write.
(Wed 10th Sep 2008, 18:48, More)

» Cheap Tat

Hyper Value
Hyper Value was a chain of shops selling very cheap merchandise. I think it may have been limited to Wales. It sold a lot of rubbish, as I'm sure you can imagine from the rather OTT name. In addition, its slogan was the slightly sinister "More than you bargained for!".

I remember seeing tins of spaghetti in tomato sauce of no particular brand, a month out of date, being sold for 5p. Isn't that illegal? How old are tinned goods by the time they go out of date, anyway? I'm sure they would have been fine...hmm.

They also had cassette tapes of singles that obviously had some surplus surviving for a few years, mostly 90s era...I suppose they had to go *somewhere*. I bought one; it was Dubstar - quite a good song actually.

They had a range of board games that shamelessly copied the products of more established companies; for instance there was an obvious replica of "Frustration!" called "Don't be Angry!". Could have been perfectly serviceable, I suppose.

The Hyper Value chain apparently owned some sort of holiday park on Barry Island. I dread to think...
(Wed 9th Jan 2008, 22:41, More)

» Customers from Hell

At least it was a brief encounter...
I’d just started a shift in the call centre, and my first call of the day came through. The call centre had a clever system whereby the telephone number calling was recognised by the computer and brought up the customer’s account. We were required to get details from the caller to ensure they were the account-holder; their full name and account password, usually.

“Good morning, you’re through to Vodafone,” I said, as cheerfully as is possible when 10 hours of your day will be spent in front of a flickering CRT, absorbing abuse and fury. “Can I take your full name please?”

I could see the caller’s name, Mr Ray Dimmock*.

“It’s Mr Dimmock.” said a curt Lancashire accent.

“Sorry – could I have your *full* name?”

“It’s Mr Dimmock!” was barked, in an irked tone.

“Yes, thank you – but I do need to have your full name; your first name, as well, please – for security reasons…” I explained.

“It’s FUCKING MR. DIMMOCK YOU DOPEY COW!” assaulted my eardrums, before he abruptly terminated the call.

I accessed the account to write up the call, and saw notes from previous CSRs explaining that “Cust can be abusive. He has apologised for this. It’s a medical condition and he can’t help it.”

I felt sorry for him in a way – he’d have to go through the queue again, presumably to be met by the same hurdle. What must it be like to be so pointlessly angry all the time?

I wish it was always that easy to get rid of awkward customers.

(* name changed to protect the terminally irate)
(Wed 10th Sep 2008, 16:13, More)