..torture
The most infuriating part of working for a company that has a call centre (I used to work for an electricity company back in NZ) is when you are subjected to the incompetence that you've been working hard for five years to stamp out.

I remember once when I rang up about my account. Some issue with my bill, as I recall. I had the misfortune to get what appeared to be a trainee on the phone, and recounted my problem. "No problem" she said "please hold the line".
30 seconds later, the dulcet tones of some unsuccessful Jazz performer were replaced with "Can you please hold on again, Sir - I need to talk to my supervisor"
Another 3 minutes of lift music ensued.

The torture was due to the fact that I was sitting at my desk back in head office, looking at my account (we only had read-only access), and I was dying to tell her that all she needed to do was press two letters, move to the next screen, scroll down 1 page, edit the third field with the correct answer, and we'd be done.

So the choice was: press 1 to go all "Senior manager and just fix the freakin' thing" on her; or press 2 to sit and wait while she found a janitor that had more experience than her to come and fix my problem.

*sigh* it's lucky I like jazz, really. Your call is important to us, please hold the line....

length: 15mins, and that's on a good day..
(alnhelzz, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 16:58, Reply)