Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel (4 page)

Uh oh, not again!

Glenn’s beady eyes fixate on us and his pupils dilate, swirling around and around in circles, like an evil Svengali. He chants in a hypnotic voice, “Always remember…service equals sales...the sale
begins
when the customer says ‘no’.”

Overcome by fatigue and boredom, I momentarily lapse into a sort of
hypnotic state as I stare at Glenn’s crazed yet magnetic eyes,
entranced by his cult leader-like voice.

Something stronger inside me takes over. Shaking my head, I snap myself out of the trance.

Hah! I answer to no Svengali, and I refuse to be brainwashed.

Despite Glenn’s efforts to blur the lines of distinction between service and sales, it is simply not working.

I remain silent and skeptical.

Service equals sales?

What the hell is he talking about?

Service equals service.
Period
.

And when the customer says ‘No’, he or she means ‘No’. I’m sorry but ‘No’ does NOT mean ‘Yes’!

Glenn is beginning to sound a bit like a rapist.

The rapist pauses for a long minute, appearing to be deep in thought. Eventually, he says, “Now class, think of it this way—people will always buy whatever it is that they
want
to buy. All you need to do is make them
want
to buy it; that’s salesmanship in a nutshell. Make them want it badly enough.
Make them desire it. Make them crave it. And you do this by
selling the features, and by making it
sexy
. Sell them the
feeling
that they’ll get from buying that product or service, and always remember to make it
sexy
!”

Glenn gives a crisp nod of satisfaction. “Now, do you get it?”

That was bullshit. Well, it was pretty amusing, temporarily brow wrinkling, but bullshit nonetheless.

Sell the feeling? Make it sexy???

It’s not like we’re selling Marc Jacob purses, Balenciaga bags or Louboutin shoes here. We’re a DSL slash phone company!

Glenn’s eyes shift across the room. “Do you get it?” he repeats.

Silence ensues.

I grudgingly acknowledge the sharp undercurrents of truth to what he’s saying. Of course I get it. I may not
like
it, but I get it.

But there is no time to sulk or mull, nor bemoan
the fact that we’re forced to sell. Before we know it, we’re in
‘nesting.’

‘Nesting’ is a period when we’re all thrown on the phones, but our trainer is tucked safely by our sides, ready for our beck and call. And we have other more knowledgeable agents known as ‘team-leads’ to hold our hands and guide us through this whole intimidating process.
   

This is what ‘nesting’ is like: I answer the phone, sometimes nervously, others, with fake confidence.
The caller asks me a question. I have no idea what he is talking
about and/or I don’t know the answer. I yell for help.

Here’s my scenario:
 

Me: Thanks for calling Lightning Speed (my voice quivers). My name is...(what the heck is my name again?) err...
Maddy
, how can I help you?

Caller: I need help with blah, blah, blah.

Me: Um, yes...I can assist you with that. But um...do you mind holding while I…err...do some research?

Caller: Of course I mind, but go ahead.

Then I frantically wave a checkered flag until Glenn or a team lead comes to my rescue. That’s nesting in a nutshell. We’re just dazed, lost and confused the whole time, crying HELLLLP!

Everything made sense in class, but on the phone, I suddenly
feel like a fish out of water. I haven’t the faintest clue what I’m doing. My troubleshooting consists of
taking tentative shots in the dark.

Thank God for Glenn and the team leads, they’re our saviors.

But I quickly discover that they’re
not
the biggest life savers.

As it turns out, the biggest life saver is not a person, but an inconspicuous, yet
highly significant button on the phone—the
‘Not Ready’ button.

This discovery was huge and all
-encompassing, parallel to stumbling upon the Holy Grail. I owe it my youth, I owe it my sanity, and without it, I’m certain I would’ve aged tenfold.

When I’m in ‘Not Ready,’ it means a call cannot come through, because hey—I’m
not
ready
to take one!

How fab! It’s meant for completing technical tickets, and for emergencies (
I think
); but most of us just end up staying in ‘Not Ready’ to take a breather from taking call after call, after call, after call. The ‘Not Ready’ button is revered as a Godsend, and is hailed amongst us as mankind’s greatest invention, the pinnacle of human achievement, even better than sliced bread.

During my ‘nesting’ period, I keep a diary and here it is, unveiled in all its nightmarish gory.

Maddy’s Nesting Dairy:

Number of calls taken = 488

Number of pills popped = 2 bottles (Tylenol Extra Strength)

Number of times I felt like shoving my head in the oven = 1000

Day 1 of nesting – I
hate, hate, hate
being on the phones. Feel utterly hopeless and confused. Sometimes instead of pushing the Hold button, I accidentally jab the Release key right next to it. I blame my fat fingers. Also, I stay in ‘Not Ready’ a lot. It is my haven. B
y the end of the day, I feel like going home and
SHOVING MY HEAD IN THE OVEN!

Day 2 of nesting – Good news: I did not shove my head in the oven. Bad news: I’m still alive, back in this garish call center, being repeatedly abused over the phone.

Day 3 of nesting – Things are improving. Occasionally I feel lost, but I’m learning to use my ‘resources,’ aka the knowledge base. Transferring calls to other departments, or
worse, conferencing calls with a third party is all a blurry mystery to me.
Still using ‘Not Ready.’ If it’s there, why not use it, right?

Day 4 of nesting – Feel more comfortable
on
the phone and
with
the phone buttons now. The calls are going smoothly. My ultra-secret weapon: bullshitting. I make certain I sound 100% sure that I know what I’m doing, even when I haven’t the foggiest idea, because once the callers sense I’m unsure, they pounce on me like a pack of wolves and question every single thing I tell them. But now that I’m on BS mode, everything is just fine and dandy. Well, all except for the fact that an 8 hour shift is equivalent to 8 hours of callers bashing me nonstop.

Don’t feel the urge to jab ‘Not Ready’ as much now; am becoming slightly more competent.

Day 5 of Nesting – H
ey, this is a piece of cake! Don’t need to
resort to BS as much, but I whip it out when desperate measures call for it. Suddenly, things are starting to
click
. I actually
know
what I’m doing. ‘Not Ready’ is only used when I feel I deserve a much needed break. Hmm. Perhaps I’ll go home and bake myself some chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

On the very last day of nesting, I’m like a bird, ready to sprout my wings, leave my nest and soar. After logging on to my phone, I whack the calls, one by one, out of the ball park!

I skip the ‘selling’ part, since I’m not held accountable for my sales quotas, at least not
yet
.

But I’m pumped! I feel a thrill, a rush of adrenalin like I’m flying a plane solo for the very first time. I am Amelia Earhart. Let’s hope I don’t crash this plane. Bring ‘em on!

Beep!

“Thanks for calling Lightning Speed Communications, this is Maddy. What can I do for you today?”

“
Habla español
?”

“Hola s
eñor!
Um, como estas. Sorry...no,” I say in my broken, hacked up Spanish. “I…err…no
habla
espanol
. Uno momento por favor.” Then I promptly transfer the call to the Spanish queue.

It’s pathetic really, since I took Spanish in high school, but other than that, I can only say random Spanish words like
burro
(donkey),
mijo
(my son),
vamanos
(let’s go),
papi
chulo
(hot daddy),
chica
(girl),
quien
es tu papi
(who’s your daddy?) and
la princesa
(the princess).

Oh, and I can count to ten—
uno
, dos,
tres
,
cuatro
, cinco
…

Okay, I guess I can only count to five.

I am completely incapable of carrying on a conversation in Spanish. Fortunately, that’s what the Spanish queue is for and they get paid more than I do because they’re bilingual.

So, TRANSFER call.

Beep!

“Thanks for calling Lightning Speed Communications, this is Maddy. How can I help?”

“G’day. Me name is Poida Woite. And I need some help with me password.”

How awesome! An Aussie from Down Under!

I peer at his name on my computer screen: Peter White.

“I can help Mr. White, but first—”

“Poida,” he interjects kindly. “Just call me Poida.”

“Okay, Peter,” I say amiably. “I’ll just need to ask you a couple of questions for verification.” And o
nce that is out of the way, I tackle the task at hand. “Now you mentioned earlier on that you needed help with your password?”

“Aye mate,” he huffs in affirmation, like pirate Captain Jack Sparrow. “I’d like to change it to Inicondi88.”

“Now, Peter, let’s make sure that I’ve got this right. Is the first letter
I
like
igloo
?”

“Norrr,
I
as in
int
,” he corrects.

Int??? What the heck is int????

“Um, you mean
I
as in
India
?” I persist.

“Nyet!
I
as in
ipple
,” he says, agitation creeping into his voice.

Pause.

Now I’m even more confused. What the hell is an ipple?

“De fruit!” His voice rises with frustration. “
Ipple
de fruit!
I
for the first letter of the ilphibet!”

“Ohhhhhh.” I stifle a laugh. “
A
as in
Apple
. Yes. Gotcha! So you want your password to be Anaconda88?” I confirm.

“Ibso-bloody-lutely!” he exclaims with a mixture of relief and exasperation.

My mouth twitches at the corners.

I reckon that they don’t speak English in Down Under; they speak Strine.

Peter
chuckles heartily. “Bloody hell, Sheila, I was beginning to think ye were a muppet. Ye dun’t know i dunny from i bottom dollar. More is the pity, the great Ozzie vernacular is fizzing ind only i galoot like ye ne’er tire of diddling me, mekin me seem silly as i two bob watch.”

O-
kay
, I didn’t understand nearly half of what he was saying. Something about a puppet, I gather.

“Puppet?” I ask perplexed. “Did you just call me a puppet?”

“Muppet.” He emits a throaty laugh. “Muppet means
idiot
.”

An idiot? Who is the idiot here?
At least I can pronounce the letter A. I’m sorry but ‘A’ is
not
pronounced ‘I’.

Crikey!
After that call, I have this sudden urge to throw some shrimp on the barbie. Perhaps I’ll even adopt a dingo and name him Mitch. On second thought, I’ll name him Poida.

Beep!

“Thanks for calling Lightning Speed Communications. This is Maddy, what can I do for you today?”

“Halo. My name is Klaus Klum and I am locked out of my account,” says the caller in a heavy German accent.

Guten Tag.
He hails from Doytchland!

And I’m half-wondering if he is related to Heidi Klum.

Aside from
kinder
,
dachshund, ausfahrt, d
u arschgefickter
hurensohn
,
fahrvergnügen
and
ich bring dich um
,
the only other German word I know, I learned from Heidi on
Project Runway
.

Oh, I can’t wait to flex my German skills. I’ve been waiting to say that word since the day I learned it on the Bravo channel.