Calls

I've been working at this particular call center for nearly five years. Only part-time, mind you. I don't think I could stand it full time and I don't know how my full-time co-workers manage it. Our company divides the calls between Sales and Service (at BOMC, where I worked at previously, we were all Full Service).

So, it is easier to just answer questions about products and take orders than dealing with customers' problems with products and orders. But it can get pretty boring. At least we are allowed to have real conversations. At BOMC we were strictly scripted and could not encourage any conversation (it got so bad we couldn't even ask if there was anything else we could help them with at the end of the call).

Some of these conversations get really long - I've been on the phone with a customer for 45 minutes and longer without making a sale. Have heard way too much about their health problems, what a Monster-in-Law they have, etc.

But sometimes these conversations are real bright spots.

Once I talked to a woman who had married a guy who had been dumped by a woman that I went to school with. (didja get that?) Mind you, I'm in PA and this school is in CA ~ I had simply remarked that I had gone to the school in her town and the conversation went off from there. I was glad to hear that the jilted fiance's story had a happy ending.

Today I had a call from a woman calling from North Carolina. I confirmed the address and said, "Advance, North Carolina?" She said yes, then laughed and said, "or, as they say here, adVANCE!" She and her family were fairly newly transplanted from the Washington, D.C. area and she was determined not to get a southern accent. So she said. I bet her two year old picks it up really quickly. I didn't tell her that I still say nekkid, and I haven't lived in TN since I was about four.

Addresses are sometimes funny. I posted yesterday about Bobo Newsom Highway. My favorite street names are Skunk's Misery Road and Jackass Annie Road (Minote, Maine). E-mail addresses are sometimes quite creative and funny. It's especially funny when the man selects the woman's email address. Or not, for the woman.

Another caller today was a woman named Tommie. I asked if that was her given name and it was (she also told me her middle name, since as a southerner that is requirement). I told her that I had a great aunt named Johntie. Tommie LOVED that name! What a hoot! I bet mom has Aunt Johntie stories, too. And a few weeks ago I spoke with a woman whose name is Shaharazod (I'm not sure that I've got the spelling right). I was dying to ask if she had a nickname.

Here is a blog of another call center employee who doesn't have as much fun as I do: http://worstcall.blogspot.com/ (thanks to doug for the link)