Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
It’s back to the call centre for Chris this week, as he recalls more phone misadventures
Last week, I talked about my short but “lovely” stay in a market research call centre. Writing the column brought back so many memories, but after a stiff drink I managed to get over those, and remembered some goods one too.
I’ll start with the worst though. A girl I worked with liked to moan. She moaned about the chairs, the desks, the temperature, but most of all, the headsets we wore when making calls.
“Filthy things,” she complained to me one day, “You could catch a nasty infection off these filthy things. Blooming filthy.”
“No, no,” I reassured her, “They’re fine; I’ve been using them for ages with no problems at all.”
Two days later I caught a really vicious ear infection and had to go to hospital. In the hospital waiting room, I couldn’t help but notice something totally wrong with the queuing system.
It’s an ear clinic, yes? Every patient in the waiting room is suffering with something ear related. We must assume that the majority, like myself, are having some problem with their hearing. So the nurse appeared at regular intervals, stood behind everybody and, in the quietest voice possible, called out something along the lines of “Mr Smith to Room 5 please.” Nobody moved. “Mr Smith?” she’d whisper again. Nothing. Magazine pages turned, nobody stood up. I truly believe some of those people must still be sitting there today.
I just about heard my own name and eventually received the bad news that it’d take a month to get my hearing back. The good news was, you can’t talk on the phone if you can’t hear anything. It was a month off for me!
Moving on to the good memories, a great one was my colleague Mia.
When Mia first arrived from Italy, she had a few problems getting acquainted with everyday English. Consequently, when our boss John gave us all a stern reprimand over our poor performance levels, Mia thought she’d break the silence and up John’s mood by complimenting him on his colourful trouser braces.
“I really like your suspenders John,” she said shyly. Easy mistake to make, I suppose. The room erupted in laughter. John had Mia’s card marked from that day forward.
A few weeks later, during a musical survey, Mia puzzled over how to categorise “traditional Brazilian dance music” and put her interviewee on hold.
“Brazilian anyone?” she suddenly shouted to a near silent room.
John’s head raised from his desk. “Brazilian? Please?” she stood up and bellowed. A silent John added further notes to Mia’s file.
After a few more incidents, including one where she completely misunderstood a client’s question and attempted to demonstrate into her phone exactly what a howler monkey’s call sounds like, Mia finally got fired.
In case you’re wondering by the way, a howler monkey’s call is loud. Very loud indeed.