To kiss my fat ass, press 1. To fuck off and die, press 2

The BBQ Pit
81

What-ho, Lizard! As Otto would, no doubt, know. And, indeed as I knew before I got the training necessary to getting a more remunerative job. But, then, this isn’t about money, is it? O.'s really crappy attitude towards the world, generally, hasn’t anything to do with his impoverished state, or why he has not yet been acclaimed universally as the greatest genius of the age. He is unfairly kept down by THE MAN, or some such. Let us now observe a moment of silence for O.'s poor finances and his lack of recognition as the GOD he is.

silence

Thank you, all.

I suggest that O. should not have started the thread for such a pitifully niggling topic. I suggest that he is the larger problem. The Pit, as I understand it, is the place to rake folks over the coals when they do not observe the niceties of debate elsewhere. The supplier of poor citations; the tu quoque abuser; the just plain absurdist debater: these are proper Pit material. What weak gruel does O. offer? Some folks don’t follow a machine-generated list like proper little drones, meaning he has to lift that oh-so-heavy phone receiver more often. Dear Abby would laugh this crap out of court. Why do you sit through it without complaint?

And when smaller than small, then where? Perhaps, my weepy little one, you need to put this on some sort of “Live Journal” account, where you can simply block out any voice that dissents from your small vision of the world as a place that is dedicatedly against you, Young Werther. I still say, this niggling garbage is unworthy of being heard by adult humans. And you still haven’t cleaned your language up, shitbreath.

And this six times you speak of, does this include the complaining about the rules of a competition in cards in which you are not competing? I would certainly include it. Complaining that some people other than you are playing cards according to rules you do not personally find agreeable is very, very childish. But then, we have different measures for childishness, I can see that plainly, Fool.

82

I suggest that you eat the peanuts out of my shit.

Wrong, dumbass. Is that what this is actually about? That you’re too dumb to read the forum description?

I use a headset, dumbfuck.

Actually it doesn’t, moron. The thread to which you refer is located in MPSIMS.

83

So, you’re an advanced tool-user. The other fools must be very jealous.

84

And you’re a tool. Although not particularly advanced.

Hmm, the shitstain who’s decided to spend as much time as you have complaining that my Pit thread is unworthy is calling me a fool. Is that irony? Where did I put that Alanis CD?

85

Really? Hmmm, let’s take a look…
But no. You, Fool, are yet again wrong. At this point the moderator Giraffe says:

Don’t try niggling about forum descriptions to defend the airing of your pathetic, asinine little annoyances. You, Fool, are of course, the one who has neglected to observe the forum description. You post foolish, pathetic gripes that would not worry a self-possessed human being. You are a crank, and you want waves of other insecure persons to come to your defense, supporting you in your crankiness.

You may know what I mean someday.

86

Wow, intellectually dishonest much? The complete text of the relevant section of Giraffe’s post reads as follows:

Clearly the rule pertains to quantity, not quality.

So do you always react this way to people who rant about their employment or have you just decided to single me out for some reason?

87

I work in a call centre for a bank. Not the world’s greatest job. It pays the bills.
To identify customers we have to ask them for their full name and password.
For quite a while my co-wokers and I have talked at length about how difficult it is to get a customer to give us a full name. We seem to get many ‘rockstars’. 'Full name please?"
“Brown.”
“Your full name, please Mr Brown?”
“Brown.”

I asked one woman in seven different variations what her full name was. First 6 answers were “My name is J.D Smith”. I tried everything -"What does ‘J’ stand for? " Still got answer “My name is J.D Smith”.

Person rings about business account- “What is your full name please?”
“The business is ACME Removals.”
"Ok. What is your name please?’
“My boss is Robert Acme.”
“Ok. Can you give me *your *name?”

It goes on and on. These are maninly native speakers of English. Even for non-native speakers, the question of “What is your name?” is one of the first things you learn in a foreign language. I could answer this in 7 languages. I could not understand much else in 3 of those languages, but I could answer that question.

I would never give out my surname. We have reference numbers for that. That is standard call centre practice.

As I always say, the customers complain, we complain to our co-workers about the customers and to our friends. Our friends probably complain about us to others- those call centre guys are always complaining about the customers. Those people probably then call our bank.One of those circle of life things.

88

I’d like to add to this the people who put a security password on their account to prevent their kids or whoever from calling in and making changes on the account or ordering pay-per-view movies, only to forget the password, then call in to make a change or order a movie and scream and yell at me because I won’t do what they want without verification of the password.

At one of my previous call center jobs, when a customer called in, we had to ask for their phone number, area code first. The area code and main phone number fields were separate, so after you typed in the area code, the cursor automatically went to the next field. I always started off the call by saying, “Thank you for calling VarTec, may I have your billing telephone number with the area code first?”

“123-4567,” they’d reply. Too late, I’d realize that they’d left the area code out*. Of course, I’d typed in “123” in the area code field and “4567” in the first part of the main number field. So, I had to delete everything I’d typed, and ask them again to recite the phone number with the area code first. Except this time, they’d just give me the area code. So I’d have to then ask for the rest of the phone number. Most people would just give it and I’d continue with the call, but every now and then, I’d get someone who’d get so outraged. Over something so insignificant! And when the problem was that they’d been too stupid to answer my initial question correctly.

The only time I ever hung up on a customer without what my employer would consider an acceptable reason** was when I got one of these customers who, when I asked her for the phone number the second time after getting the area code in the right field, started reciting her number as if she were talking to a three-year-old: “Ooooonnnee, twooooooo, threeeeee…” I think she got one or two digits out before I disconnected the call. Felt pretty good.

As for the security issue of giving out my last name, it is, really. I have an extremely uncommon Polish surname. I’m fairly, though not absolutely, certain that the only people in the country with my surname are related to me. And not distantly, either. I’m talking about uncles, aunts, first cousins, and the like. If you were to google my first and last name in quotation marks, any results would definitely be about me (though I’m not sure if you’d get anything). I don’t have my number listed, but if I did and you had my full name and knew what state I was in (which we’re required to tell customers if they ask), you could easily look up my home phone number and address. I’d be pretty upset if the customer who once threatened to “tear [my] mother’s throat out” had that information. I mean, my mother’s already dead and I doubt he’d actually try that (though who knows, there are crazy people out there), but he’d very likely harass me in any way he could. And I don’t get paid enough to deal with that shit. However, I’m more than happy to give out my employee ID, which can be used just as easily to identify me if there’s ever a need to do so.
*Why would you not give your full phone number when calling a long distance phone company? Did they think we were psychic? Did they think we only operated in one area code?

**Such as a caller being extremely profane or abusive.

89

Could you translate that into Eng… uh, into something I can understand?

90

I think Otto is a little too bent about this, (hey, you chose to do the job, you thought only happy customers would call you?) That aside I will address just one issue, that of identifying the call taker. It is common practice in my world (Computer tech) that you don’t give a rodent’s rectum who you talked to, you just want to pick the call up where you left off (and give the new tech time to read the work ticket). I can understand the desire for call reps to remain nameless, but there should be a way for the customer to identify who they talked to. The work ticket system works that way. When I was a cop, (15 years ago) we had badge numbers and our names were on our uniforms. Total accountability. I generally worked with people who would like to kill me.

Dang, they do not give call center people guns do they? Suddenly I am scared!

91

And was your phone number listed in the phone book?

See, I work in a medical billing office, and I take phone calls all day as well. I actually work for the company — we’re not an outsourced call center — and I also actually do the billing.

I’m not going to give out my last name, because my number’s in the book. I get an hourly wage, and I’m not on call. I’m not paid to answer my home telephone to answer questions about your bill — even supposing that I had access to your billing information from home, which I don’t.

If I had to answer customer calls at home, that’d be overtime, and my boss doesn’t want anybody to have any overtime.

I’m the only Corey in the billing office, and our phone system doesn’t have extensions or automated pushbutton hell where you can dial the extension you choose. We answer it personally: no computers.

I fully understand why Otto chose to rant. I feel similarly, at times: patients call and have no idea what they want, or how to explain it to you. Many don’t know which insurance is primary and which secondary, or what a deductible is, and a frightening number haven’t read the policy they signed.

But I also feel that it takes a great deal of understanding and patience to help people like that, because you can’t educate your customers. It doesn’t work. You just have to deal with your customers as they are and understand why they do what they do.

Sometimes patients like to talk (“well, I went to the doctor three weeks ago Thursday, the 21st I think. I know it wasn’t Wednesday because that’s when they serve the chicken salad special at JV’s Health Foods. My wife had a salad. Anyway, our doctor said I had the same disorder as my old friend Bob, except Bob had cancer and I didn’t. Bob and I were in the Navy together…”) and some of them begin telling me their problem before they tell me who they are.

I just deal with it. I figure I can’t change the nature of the patients, though I can occasionally steer them back on-topic when they start to wander outside my job description (“no, ma’am, I can’t tell you what your X-ray report means, I can’t explain your insurance contract to you, and I don’t know which gastroenterologist you saw last week or what his phone number is. What question can I help you with about the bill we sent you?”).

92

First of all, isn’t the minimum wage up to $6.15 an hour or something now? Second, how insulting to assume that otto is some minimum wage flunky.

Third, you’d rather waste your time on hold to get a teller to tell you your balance when it’s such a simple ANYTIME you feel like it process of dialing and punching in numbers?

I’d bet you a dinner at your fave restaurant that I can get my balance (and my last 5 transactions) faster by dialing my telebanking service than you can by getting a teller.

93

The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, though some states have higher minimum wages.

94

Except you apparently MISSED the part where potentially your co-worker (who is not as with it and intelligent as you are) specifically TOLD the dumbass caller to give his employer’s name instead.

Just because YOU as a call center employee are on the ball, doesn’t mean that your fellow workers are, and haven’t previously given false or confusing information to a customer.

When I moved from my apartment and bought a condo, for some bizarre reason, my internet service has gone bonkers. Works, then doesn’t work, all sorts of irritating madness. I’ve gotten a different answer and a different solution for this problem each of the 8 to 10 times I’ve called.

I got really, REALLY tired of going through the same set of questions, and the last time I finally just interrupted the call center guy’s spiel and said "LOOK, don’t you have this all down in my file? (such as with credit card companies and banks), so that you can look up what has happened, I mean, I’ve been calling about twice a week since I moved.

Luckily the guy was very nice about it and explained how their particular call center didn’t keep histories on the customer, just their basic information. He also explained that there were more than 65 people at any given time AT the call center (wow, that’s cool).

Strangely, after speaking to this young man, who pooh-poohed one of his fellow employees’ suggestions that it was my network card that had died (really? and do they self revive only days later?), my internet connection hasn’t died since.

At any rate, you don’t know who in your call center the customer has talked to, or what they’ve been told that may cause them to incorrectly interpret your questions.

95

Dang, Kansas is $2.65??? Now, in 2006? No wonder they’re in black and white, they can’t afford color in their state :slight_smile:

Wow, I made that as a teenager at mickyD’s in the ummm cough70scoughcough.

Psssst otto dnftt, even a well spoken one. :slight_smile:

96

Not only that, you don’t even get overtime until you work 46 hours per week. Of course, I am sure these antiquated state laws are superceded by federal law.

97

I worked for American Express for a while, and we were absolutely required to give our location if asked. We were absolutely forbidden from giving our last names if asked. I guess they assumed that if we went stalking our clients, they’d know, since they keep track of who we talk to.

In any case, some people are always going to be tripped up by automated phone systems. I always found that the people most likely to screw them up were the people who did not grow up surrounded by modern technology and pushbutton phones…

98

No dog in this fight, just…<<snerk>>…Foldup Rabbit??? Foldup Rabbit???

Hee hee hee hee…cool name!!!

:smiley:

99

The worst of these is “While I bring your information up, I’ll tell you about a new offer…”

Somehow, in the last few years, they’ve downgraded all their equipment to the point where it takes so long to bring up an account that they can squeeze one more spiel in.

100

If my first and last name don’t guarantee that you can get directly to me within any company I work for no matter the size, then you should blame my mother for picking a trendy first name and my father, a Smith, for marrying her long before I was born. :smiley: I’m used to taking my name-twins’ calls at home, but I’d really prefer not to take the rap (or praise) for them at work, too! Instead of using my personal information which I may have in common with other employees to identify me, I think my company should give me another method of identifying myself uniquely, like a number. Numbers could even be used as phone extensions to a personal voice mailbox! Wow, think of the possibilities.

Seriously, I’ve given out my extension/ full name to people every time it was requested before, and I can tell you some things about the people who ask for full names or extensions. A lot of them are the sort of person who doesn’t realize that if Corrvin is at work at midnight, Corrvin is not likely to be at work at noon, and they’ll get quite irate about someone “avoiding their calls” when the person simply isn’t at work! They would rather leave an impatient message than call and speak with someone who’s not the “great guy who helped them” before. (To be blunt, there is a REASON that the previous ops couldn’t help this person and you the operator are suddenly a shining star because you did, and it’s not always because the previous ops were particularly stupid or rude-- some callers just let their common sense get flang out the window when they pick up the phone.)

One reason I really didn’t like giving out my name/extension is that people would want me, and only me, to fix their problem, which really screwed over my co-workers. Perhaps I was the first person to be kind and patient and understanding, and they liked me for that, but what about the second call they had to make? I’d be miffed at my co-workers for scaring the callers or making them mad because I had to calm them down-- why shouldn’t they be mad at me if I “trained” a caller to insist on talking to me instead of letting that other equally-well-trained person fix the damn problem they called about in the first place?