Saturday, September 13, 2008

Call centre heaven?

Anyone who has ever worked in a call centre knows about 'The Parting Shot'. It's when the call's ending, and the caller wants to get in some final dig at you when you don't have the chance to respond.
--Okay, thanks for calling.
--Goodbye...you Scotch cunt*click*

The sort where you want to look up their number and call them back to point out that
a) They're quite the telephone tough guy, and
b) Scotch is a drink, you moronic buffoon.

The other kind of parting shot is the phrase said to someone else in the room. Sometimes, this is genuine, sometimes not. Either they'll switch their demeanour to talk to their cohort:
--Well, thanks for all your help anyway..................Well they're no fucking he*click*

Or they'll pretend to do the same, bellowing loudly (volume and intelligence frequently being inversely proportional) to their couch, presumably in the misguided hope that I'll be racked with guilt at their plight and call them back, apologise, and point out that I've checked again and I actually DO have the power to amend government policy and violate all manner of anti-discrimination laws to suit their every whim.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this entry was to note that the complete reverse happened the other day. It was a simple case of moving records, updating an employer, splitting allowances and issuing a couple of codes. Bread and butter for any semi-competent revenue monkey. Explained what would happen and what the timescales would be, and as she hung up, I heard her talking to her mum in the background (genuine, voices off had been heard all call).
--Okay, goodbye.............He was fantas*click*
Calls like that do happen every so often, and it's quite the ego boost.

Of course, the next call was a stuck up prick that I wished would die in a freak yachting accident, and normal service was resumed.

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