Call Center Blues

Just found the blog of my favorite author JA Jance. Her most recent entry is copied below had me LOL as they say in computer speak. I should amend that to say that it also brought back some painful call center memories!

By the way, there is also a recent entry about mammograms and the new guidelines. Bittersweet and humorous in spite of its title - OOPS! Rant Warning!!!! Not Funny. I put a link to her blog in the lower right column of my blog. Enjoy!

"Call Center Blues
The East Coast is having the kind of pre-Christmas snow event that we had last year. So far, in Seattle anyway, our owning a personal snow plow seems to be having a very salutary effect as in No SNOW! But I know lots of people's holiday is going to be blown to pieces by having guests who don't make it at all or who don't make it at all and gifts--especially gift baskets--that also misfire due to weather related issues. So now a word about call centers and the people who work there, including a daughter who works in one.

She thinks of the days leading up to and following Christmas as a particular kind of hell.

Let's begin by saying I have my own challenges with call centers. I'm aggravated beyond words by the cheerful voice lady who demands a dozen different pieces of information so she can send me to the "right" attendant, but then, after I've repeated the information over in over at ever increasing volume, she sends me along to the "right attendant" without sending along any of the information I already gave her. So it's easy to be mad as hell before you're even put in the queue to wait on interminable hold along with probably hundreds of other people listening to toneless, clangly music that doesn't blend well with the Mozart sonata I'm trying to hear on my end of the queue.

Let's be clear. The person who actually answers the phone isn't in charge of the pre-recorded announcement. She didn't create the answering system that takes my information and then sends it into the ethers without a trace. She didn't establish the hiring and staffing policies that determine how many people are on the job at any given time, and she most CERTAINLY isn't in charge of the weather! She's not stupid--as she's been called, and she's not doing her best to destroy every irate customer's holiday season, either. Her job at the call center is the right one for her at the moment, because she can leave it behind when she turns off her phone and walks away. As a widowed mother with a four year old, she needs that--a job that stays on the job when she goes home to be a mommy.

Christmas comes along on the same day of the year EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Those of us who dither around and don't do our ordering in a timely fashion are . . . well . . . late! And even when we order on time, there are still unforeseen circumstances that cause difficulties. The people who answer the phones--finally--really are there to help us. Yes, I find myself yelling at the babe with the unfailingly cheerful voice because she doesn't usually pay any attention. But when I finally reach the human at the far end of the queue, I take a few deep breaths and put on my own unfailingly cheerful voice.

After all, it might be a good idea to remember why you're ordering all those presents in the first place. Put a little holiday cheer in your voice to say nothing of the milk of human kindness. And if your presents don't arrive until the 26th or even the 29th--as ours did last year--I can assure you, it isn't the end of the world. After all, I'm still here, aren't I?"