hello, how may i help you?

“please don't call me on the phone, and don't even bother stopping by before i go” – lastpagefirst (don’t call)

yesterday i spent half an hour in the train talking to a colleague acquaintance who works in the call centre. i always thought that he was kinda weird. but after half an hour of one on one conversation, i’m convinced he is weird.

so i asked the cursory ‘where were you working previously’ question. but instead of the usual quick run through, i got a pretty detailed answer. i even had company names thrown at me. while that in itself is not a bad thing and sometimes even proves to be pretty helpful, throwing company names i have never ever heard of doesn’t help. who knows what on earth is XYZ Asia Pte Ltd*? and who even cares that much? especially not if he only worked there for a week. yes, he proudly told me that he’s had 27 jobs in 9 years. wow! that number just makes my resume look humble by comparison. his resume must be the size of a phone book.

now i’m always up for a lil ‘making fun’ of strangers behind their backs… it’s just in the way it’s done. sometimes it’s funny and other times there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. in the middle of our conversation, he suddenly remarked on a short guy - tall girl couple that walked in. okay so they were certainly mismatched. she looked significantly older than he did. talk bout the mrs robinson syndrome. i can think of a few of my friends who would joke bout that… me included… but it was just the way he said it that rubbed me the wrong way.

and then he remarked that she was big boned. okay not the nicest thing to say but before my brain even had time to process that he went on to say that he likes to notice people’s bone structure. that really made me want to cover my entire body in an armour. he proceeded to explain that his reasoning was ‘coz he used to work in his dad’s hawker shop where there was a butcher in friend and a chicken slaughterer behind. he wondered if people’s bone structure were different. er… okay… i sure as heck hope so! or else i’m just having a really bad day…

ahh but definitely not as bad a day as someone else… he complained bout a nasty customer who kept calling the call centre. when you work in a call centre, you take the good customers together with the bad. i can relate. and sometimes it’s necessary to vent**. just like with any other annoying things that we face in life. i’m cool with that. but to think of harming the source of your annoyance takes it up another notch. okay so you decide not to pick up his calls or maybe pick up his calls and tell him off… whatever… but he took the cake by saying he wanted to ask that annoying customer down to our office on the pretext of wanting to give him a gift. and what would that gift in question be you may ask… well let’s just say that annoying customer may get to meet his maker sooner than he thought…

okay so i feel the need to explain a bit first for those who don’t know my workplace… my office is in a remote location where due to the large number of big tanks full of flammable liquids being stored within the compound, we have an equally large number of guards with big guns on patrol. trust me, you get used to it pretty fast. but basically what the guy wanted to do was to shoot annoying customer.

whoa!

i told him not to tell me bout it. i don’t want to be an accessory to murder.

i don’t think i ever wanted out of a conversation so much before. he was starting to increasingly annoy me with his nasal voice, bad enunciation and poor choice of words.

essentially i think he has all the personality and social graces of someone who should not be working in a call centre.

or maybe it’s just a job hazard. maybe when you are forced to make nice with annoying customers all day, inevitably you’ll just find yourself with the increasing urge to shoot ‘em all.

if that’s the case, thank goodness i’m not working in a call centre.


* note: real name of the unheard of company is protected. actually i can’t even remember the real name of the unheard of company.
** here i shall apologise for the venting content of this post. i promise that i’m not usually this annoying or intolerant.