What's in a name?
Many years ago I used to work in a call centre for a leading insurance company.*

As team leader of the I.S.T (International Sales Team), I'd have to meet up with the other S.T.L's (Sales Team Leaders) and C.S.T.L's (Customer Support Team Leaders) for a weekly M.M (Management Meeting). It was utter, utter, tedious painful bollocks. During these meetings suicide seemed like a perfectly reasonable course of action. I swear these sycophantic wankers had all been lobotomized. If you dished out two rubicks cubes, one to this lot and the other to a bucketful of pigshit, I'd have staked my house, life and knackers on the steamy pig crap to solving the puzzle first. It really was that bad.

All we'd talk about was names. They were big on names and snappy-sounding acronyms in this place. One of the particularly nasty tosspots who worked there, a middle aged lady named Tracy who scared the living shit out of me, was running one of the customer support teams: she decided her team needed a new name. And who best to come up with this name than the shower of mutated, disease-ridden pissflaps sat round the table in the team leader meeting.

After ten minutes or so doodling and trying not to fall asleep I got asked if I had a suggestion. I was never really cut out for the job, the people I had working for me said I was human and just didn't fit in. So I seemed to spend most of my time squirming and trying to blend into the scenery. Anyway, I put down my pencil, had a little think about it and - as I tend to do when I'm nervous - thought I'd play the clown:

Ho! Ho! This'll get a bit of a laugh!

So I said: "How about customer understanding and negotiation team?" And then I sat back with a shit-eating grin on my face.

The only problem was that Tracy fucking loved the name. Oh, shit...

So, a few days later when one of my team ambled up to me and said, "Err, Spanky... You see that battleaxe, Tracy..." I nodded. "Couldn't help but notice her team name's changed..." I nodded again. "And she's making a sign to hang from the ceiling above her desk..." Again, I nodded, frantically sipping at my coffee cup. "And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the sign says-"

You see, from a distance - and thankfully my team was based right on the other side of the large open plan office away from Tracy's team - you couldn't quite make out the '&' she'd written in smaller lettering on the sign.

So Tracy sat there, for about three or four hours before someone pointed it out to her, directly underneath a sign which had stencilled on it in big black letters:

C U N T

Technically, the sign was absolutely correct - Tracy was a cunt. Oh, how we laughed about it in our next management meeting!

Thinking about it though, I didn't last too long in that job...

*Named after a Swiss city.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 14:20, 10 replies)

The Yorkshire police put together a special squad to hunt the Yorkshire ripper,
which they called the Serious Homicide Investigation Team.
They even had a plaque made for the door.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 14:33, closed)

HeeHeeHeeHee
this is classic! I used to work for an 'orrible manager lady named Tracy in a call centre. I wonder if its the same one?
(Jelly God, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 14:58, closed)

Striking a blow against the call centre wanker bosses
Works everytime for me, mate. *clicks*
(Lizard King, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 15:00, closed)

I tried to pull the same trick once but was rumbled
I suggested Crime Unit Network Technology as a name for the software we were working on for the cops.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 15:11, closed)

Gawd bless ya, Spanky....
...and all who sail in yer! *smashes a bottle over your prow*

Anecdotally, our 1st line support (customer service desk for a certain government) has implemented a scheme you'd like. It's called "Project Swallow". I dropped a suggestion into the suggestion box suggesting, suggestively, that the follow-up program should be called "Operation Spit".

I am expecting to be disciplined shortly.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 15:52, closed)

Ha!
That's great!!! You should take a tape recorder into your disciplinary meeting. That would become an internet classic, I'm sure!
( SpankyHanky, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 16:30, closed)

Please, Please be true??.....
Class!
(Kip, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 19:28, closed)

Reminds me of a terrible SF movie I was watching round a mates house one time, we had just decided it was worthless and that it was time to play some video games instead when the scene changed to a long shot of a building - Supreme Headquarters Intelligence Taskforce, apparently the people making the film had a low opinion as well.
(Benzyl, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 19:37, closed)

I can usually tell
it's you by the second sentence in. Stirling work, as ever...
(berk, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 12:05, closed)

heh
Class - doesn't even matter if it's true - though I would like to think it is! :) *click*
(bottle_cap, Sun 6 Sep 2009, 21:05, closed)