Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Chris manages to inject some randomness into the grimmest of jobs…

Along time ago, for want of anything else I was capable of doing, I spent a short time working in a market research call centre.

Before you put the phone down on me, this didn’t involve sales calls – this was bona fide research involving people who had agreed to take part. Involving as it did reading questions from a script, I ended up saying exactly the same thing around 100 times a day, so it was mind-numbingly awful work.

At least it was a good laugh working there. Well, I laughed once, on the day I started. That was at a fellow first dayer’s expense. She asked me what I thought of the job, listened to my less than enthusiastic response, put her headset on, initiated her dialtone and then, overcompensating for her blotted out hearing, boomed at the top of her voice, our manager only feet behind us, “IT’S THE WORST JOB I’VE EVER HAD. I REALLY HATE IT!”

So boring were my scripts, every now and then I’d slip in the odd extra line, just to see if anybody was actually listening. For instance, “This is a worldwide study, but we’re planning to extend it even further” never once provoked the question “Where could you extend it to?” I’d also throw in random words, and if anybody ever noticed, they never said so.

“Hello, I’d like to ask you a few questions about how often you use your local advisory services, council-run soapy workshops and monkey training centres” should really have provoked at least a query, but not once, ever.

So, I established nobody was listening to me, which at least made me feel at home, but I was certainly listening to them. I’m glad I did, as some of them were wonderful.

I once had to interview an elderly Irish millionaire for a survey entitled What Drives An Entrepreneur.

Me: “I’d like to find out about your business. Can I ask what sector you work in?”

Millionaire: “Sector? What do you mean?”

Me: “Eh… field? What field do you work in?”

Millionaire: “I don’t work in a field. I work on an industrial estate. Did you think I was a farmer, did you?”

In another section, I had to ask whether he set out with fame or fortune in mind.

Millionaire: “Have you ever heard my name?” Me: “Um, no, but –” Millionaire: “Well, don’t be so stupid then.”

And so it went on. I loved that interview!

Incidentally, the colleague I mentioned didn’t lose her job after her first-day outburst. No, she achieved that due to her dodgy pronunciation. The interview that finally did for her involved questions to a live entertainment complex about its general layout.

“So, how many holes do you have?” “I’m sorry?” “Do you have lots of holes, or just one great big hole?”

At least she got to go home early that day. I must’ve asked a hundred more people about halls before they let me go…